Sharp as a Feather and Soft as a Blade
by ScarletTigress
Summary: Set just after the second season of the anime. DOES NOT FOLLOW THE MANGA. Eventually alternate universe. After delivering his closest friend into the arms of his greatest enemy in a desperate gamble to save Hide's life, Kaneki is imprisoned by the CCG. Hide is willing to do anything to help them escape, but a clever ploy to smuggle equipment has unforeseen consequences...
1. Chapter 1

Sharp as a Feather and Soft as a Blade

White, white everything, too formless to be like snow and too rigid to be like milk. Kaneki cracked his neck to the relieve the nasty little spot of tension settling into his spine and let his eyes wander up with blank, white walls, looking for seams or shadows or something. There had to be something to look at. Occasionally, he found a place where one panel fitted with the next and then trying to follow the line provided by the near-perfect seam. Tracking the almost imperceptible line gave him something to do. The boredom was crushing. He wished they would at least give him a book, but he was not prepared to barter for something so simple. Not yet. Not when he was reasonably sure that his actions, or lack thereof, was chipping away at their resolve one day at a time and steadily gaining ground too. The CCG had apparently given up on more physical means of torture as an avenue to motivate his cooperation, which was a bit of a relief. The attempts at vivisection had been bad. Well, pretty bad, not as bad as other things, but Kaneki thought the boredom might actually be worse. He was by nature an intellectual and having nothing to do, nothing, was torture in its own right.

Having people trying to cut through his skin, clumsily and with tools poorly designed to deal with the toughness of his body was painful, but mostly just embarrassing. They never got very far before his… well…his exoskeleton Kaneki supposed would be the most appropriate term, manifested and put a halt to any of the more scientific attempts to hurt him. A few digits and maybe part of an organ lost, nothing that didn't just grow back a few hours later. The waterboarding was a little bit bad, no one liked drowning, but the Kakuja armor over his face put a neat stop to that as well. They tried to saw through it of course, to cut it with lazers and smash it with hammers, but Kaneki was more than used to having parts of his body burned and crushed and with the armor he barely felt it.

"Fucking amateurs." Yamori snorted from the depths of his mind.

"They have goals." Kaneki whispered back to him or to the echoes of him still lurking in his Kakuja.

"Peh, goals…I had goals too." Yamori argued, cracking his knuckles from the fissures in Kaneki's psyche.

"Your goals were all for yourself. They have external goals. Institutional goals." Kaneki replied, feeling the tension and pain begin to gather in his neck again.

Something about how his bones fit together after being forced to regenerate so many times, a small error of alignment, maybe, or an imbalance in his ligaments, caused his body to be stiffer than before. His joints needed to crack now in order to retain any semblance of comfort. All of Yamori's creations were this way, at least the ones that survived. He cracked his neck again, knowing that the adjustment wouldn't last long.

"Number 20. Please, produce the Kakuja." The voice sounded over the intercom again.

"Wow! Now we're even to the 'please' stage!" Rize laughed, "This is getting interesting."

Kaneki raised his eyes and smiled in what he hoped was a friendly and reassuring way, but stayed exactly where he was and did absolutely nothing. They were getting a little bit more desperate, he thought, or maybe just a little more uncomfortable, tension gathering on the other side of the two way mirror the way it did in his neck and fingers, moving towards an inevitable release. Either way, it served his plans. He counted in his head, curious to see when they would reach for the lever and start the shocks. Last time was almost 9 seconds, quite a bit less than what they were doing yesterday. Two days ago, the interval between disobedience and electricity was always the same, the timing like clockwork, almost mechanical, but now the timing was far more variable. Whoever was on the other side of the white nothing was getting impatient and breaking protocol. A broken protocol wasn't much as far as most negotiations were concerned, but in this case the change was a major achievement.

"Dammit Ghoul! The Kakuja! Now!" The voice snapped, sounding fully irate this time.

"I would like to see Hideyashi Nagachika please." Kaneki said, trying out the smile again.

The white room erupted with electricity, racing in sparking surges of pure agony through hist feet and legs, up to crackle menacingly in his snow-white hair. He jerked at the sensation of seared skin, tissues rent from their anchors as the energy moved through his helpless flesh and into the quivering bones below. He jerked, muscles contracting frantically and hands curled into twisted claws with the force of the shock. His jaw snapped together, the force of it more than enough to crack his teeth, or it would have been if Kaneki was still human. Despite knowing that the shock was coming, his brain was still wiped blank with the excruciating force of the torture, thoughts scattered with nothing but the howling pain to join one moment to the next.

He screamed, lungs expelling air on reflex, the sound more like a rabbit dying than any noise a human would make. Well, he wasn't human. The thoughts wouldn't come together, skittering away like spiders in harsh light. His back arched, shifting the bones in his spine ominously and straining his neck even as the nerves in his muscles sent tingling pops of confused pain back to his jerking limbs. He couldn't breathe. Unconsciousness threatened and Kaneki embraced the blackness, lips drawn back in a grimacing smile that was almost victorious even as his flesh jerked against the ground.

OoOoOoO

Koutarou Amon thought of himself as a patient man, a disciplined man, but even he was growing tired of the daily carnage Dr. Natski Ayo was using in his bullheaded attempt to break the prisoner. It was like watching a semi-literate carpenter trying to do neurosurgery using a sledgehammer instead of a scalpel. The whole spectacle was gruesome, but also faintly frustrating as well. Even so, he had grudgingly come to admire Kaneki Ken's unwavering resilience in the face of more than a month of various kinds of torture. The ghoul looked pale and perhaps a bit thinner, more tired, but the expression on his face was as placid as one of the kotokuin Buddha statues he'd prayed to as a child. He supposed such a response was not totally unexpected for someone who'd undergone torture by the 13th Ward's Jason himself. Whatever the research department was hoping to accomplish with the endless procession of failed attempts as vivisection, waterboarding and electricity was clearly not working. On some level, the Eyepatch and his internment was his responsibility and Amon was getting tired of watching Dr. Ayo smash himself against the immovable wall that was Kaneki Ken's resolve.

"Is the idea to tame the ghoul or simply kill it?" Amon asked, crossing his arms.

"He'll cooperate eventually. Just like any other lab animal, the shocks will condition a response." Ayo hissed, hands still twitching.

"Yes, well, I would be curious to hear what response you've achieved thus far." Amon replied dryly.

"Well, the creature…"

"Ignores us most of the time and smiles at us the rest of it." Dr. Riko Shinguya yawned, stretching his arms above his head luxuriously.

"That…that isn't true, this…this strategy…" Ayo sputtered.

"Oh, so you _do_ have a strategy. How reassuring." Amon rolled his eyes.

"This strategy requires time, it…" Ayo started.

"… _isn't_ working." Shinguya finished cheerfully.

Amon raised an eyebrow at the junior researcher. There was something in the man's demeanor that reminded him uncomfortably of Juuzou Suzuya, though Shinguya had nothing of the younger man's boisterous energy or penchant for self-mutilation. The two men looked nothing alike, either. Shinguya was tall, slender and darksome, where Juuzou was petite and albino-looking, but there was just something in the semi-detached curiosity with which they spoke. Despite the content of his words, Shinguya looked purely delighted by the fact that his senior was clearly bungling their project, which either meant that he was a sociopath or that he had a better idea. Amon thought the most likely answer was a little bit of both.

"It is. The bastard is just stubborn. If you would just allow me to employ some of the earlier methods in conjunction as I've _already_ suggested…" Dr. Ayo sputtered, looking red-faced and furious.

"If he were a normal ghoul, that last little stunt would have killed him," Koutarou Amon cut him off, his normally cool voiced chilled with another ounce of censure, "I think I've given you more than enough leeway in this."

"But he _isn't_ so it's _fine_." Ayo snapped.

"The problem is not that we aren't doing _enough_ , Natski…" Shinguya drawled.

"I told you, dammit, it's _Dr_. Ayo…"

"…It's that we are choosing inappropriate methods to achieve the desired result." Shinguya finished, unperturbed.

"You have my attention, Dr. Shinguya." Amon said, turning towards the younger researcher.

Riko Shinguya turned to look at him, his smile widening a fraction until the expression was almost a grimace and adjusted his glasses with a lazy finger. His dark eyes were sharp behind the delicate frames, larger than the average person's and bright with just a hint of madness behind the obsidian irises. The younger man was eager, like some small predator waiting for the appropriate moment to pounce, his tail was practically lashing. Ayo glared at him, but Shinguya had already forgotten about him, his focus fully and completely on Amon.

"We give the Eyepatch what he wants." Shinguya said, licking his lips.

"That's ridiculous. The only demand he ever makes is to speak with that Nagachika person, whom none of us know well and who has no criminal or…" Ayo interrupted stridently.

"Doctor," Amon said nodding towards Shinguya and holding a quelling hand in front of Ayo's furious face, "Please continue."

"We simply don't have the means or the, well, _expertise_ to motivate his cooperation through physical pain. This is the individual who withstood Yamori aka 'Jason' and not only lived through it, but ended up breaking the other ghoul in the process and eating him. No matter what we do to him, Eyepatch is not going to give in until he's either dead or too psychologically shattered to be any use…" Riko Shinguya continued, calmly.

"Not true, I have read numerous accounts of…" Ayo sputtered.

"The accounts you are citing come from _Ghouls_ , Ayo-chan. Eyepatch is not a ghoul in the classical sense, but something else entirely. He is a hybrid between a predator and prey species, something unheard of, with the same hybrid resilience occasionally seen in other creatures." Shinguya said, his tone finally bordering on irate.

"And how would giving Eyepatch access to Hideyoshi Nagachika, who is by all accounts a non-entity, facilitate our goals?" Amon asked.

"We have power over something the creature wants, detective. In some sense, I believe we may even have a hostage. I recommend bringing the young man here, allowing him to interact with Eyepatch. Let him see Nagachika, smell him, touch him, know without a doubt that the boy is alive and within our control." Shinguya continued, his tone almost fierce with eagerness.

Amon's initial reaction to the idea was a surge of almost primordial distaste, but he was a careful enough thinker to wait, let the revulsion pass, and consider the information logically. No one really knew what hold the Nagachika person had over the Eyepatch, but the ghoul was captured bringing him back for medical care. Perhaps they were friends, possibly even better if they were enemies. Maybe Nagachika simply knew something that Kaneki wanted to find out. In any case, there was considerable merit to the idea.

"That's tantamount to _murder_ , you sadistic moron! It's the same as putting a rabbit into the same cage with a python! You can't be serious." Ayo scoffed.

"This is a controlled environment. In all likelihood the Hideyoshi Nagachika will be perfectly safe. In either case, cost to the CCG will be minimal compared to what we can learn, what we can _do_ …"

"So you advocate using Nagachika as glorified monster bait. And then?" Amon raised an eyebrow skeptically.

"Then _we_ have control, understand?" 

"No." Amon replied pithily.

"Nagachika is only human, some worthless _college_ student without any kind of prestige or even attentive parents to worry about him, just another missing person if something goes wrong. More importantly, he is not a ghoul and so bounded by the same restrictions as the rest of us, we can understand his needs, his motivations and use him to clarify the way Eyepatch thinks and feels. He's a human mirror. Give Eyepatch access to him, assess the character of his intentions and use the motivation to manipulate him. We can threaten to harm Nagachika or bribe him or simply use the base reaction the Eyepatch has to him to tailor our approach. We can hold him hostage against Kaneki, in mind or in body, and I believe the ghoul will give us full cooperation." Shinguya finished with a nod, as if satisfied with himself already.

"Ghoul's _eat_ humans." Ayo sniped.

"The Eyepatch is, as I've already said, not like other ghouls."

OoOoOoO

Hide had no idea what Kaneki could have done to finally break through to them and he didn't really care. The CCG officials, the very same men and women who had served the past two months as his genial jailors, were going to let him see Kaneki for the first time since the night of the battle. He would get to talk to him at least, and the opportunity was not one he intended to waste. Despite the polite conversation and tasty meals that the CCG lavished upon him, Hide knew that they were hurting Kaneki, probably torturing him, maybe even worse. Not that anyone would actually _say_ it, to use a word as ugly and politically incorrect as 'torture' would practically be counter to their culture, but Hide still knew. When he asked about Kaneki, the conversation was inevitably steered in another direction or turned around to press for more details about his friend's surgery, his eating habits, his kagune and the extent of his relationship to ghouls in general. Pleading full, and occasionally semi-retarded, ignorance usually worked well enough to short-cut the interrogation and if not, he could always whip up some quick tears. Hide was an absolute expert when it came to crocodile tears, had been since second grade, and the CCG was either morally opposed to crying or legitimately allergic to genuine emotion.

Weeks passed and Hide managed to slither out of most attempts to troll for information about Kaneki, but he didn't actually acquire much of his own either. Not knowing made him nervous and there were other things too. No one used Kaneki's name, stubbornly referring to him as "the creature" or "the Eyepatch" instead of talking about his friend like a real person. There were the hushed conversations just beyond his door, the ever present cameras and countless areas of the so called "hospital" plastered with warning signs too effusive and infinitely too vague to represent something normal. Late at night, when the low grade white noise from the servers was silenced as the vast computers restarted, he occasionally heard screaming. The sound was always faint, almost faint enough to ignore and sleep through, _almost_.

Even if Hide was a very naïve person, which he wasn't, that would have been more than enough to raise his anxiety. Bad things were happening. Bad things were being done to one of the few people he truly cared about and who cared about him and all of it was his fault. If he hadn't gotten hurt, or just properly _died_ in the first place, none of this would be happening to Kaneki and even if things weren't perfect, at least his friend would still be free. Despite what he knew the ghoul would say, what Kaneki _always_ said, the truth was just the truth. His best friend was suffering because of his own weakness and that was unacceptable.

So Hide lied, and cried, and memorized the movements of his guards and the trash disposal and the timer on the cameras and a hundred other things that may or may not be useful. He put every ounce of energy his ravaged body could muster into his physical therapy until he was able to move on his own without pulling the staples or losing consciousness. Once the surgical closure was removed, he added additional pushups, excruciatingly painful sit-ups and squats any time he could get away with it unobserved. Hide befriended any and every warm body that came into his space and eventually built enough rapport to get his phone and other electronics back. He prepared as quietly and cheerfully as possible, and waited for a chance to rescue Kaneki.

So, when Akira came to inform him that he would be granted a brief opportunity to see Kaneki, to verify that he was both alive and healthy as she'd said, Hide already had some things prepared. The primary key to a successful escape would be to give Kaneki some way to get out of whatever solitary confinement cubicle they were keeping him. The second part would be to somehow ensure that he was well fed enough to fight like hell. The second problem was both considerably easier to figure out and infinitely more terrifying than the first, so Hide decided to start small: he would smuggle something in. He debated between the Bluetooth earbud, neatly wrapped with a wireless charger, the miniature switchblade still sewn into the sleeve of his old pants or a few grams of plastic explosive paste pilfered from the supply room when everyone thought he was sleeping. Both the switchblade and the explosive might hurt Kaneki if his plan went sideways, so the little communication device would just have to do. Besides, if they could talk, everything _else_ would be much easier. Used judiciously, the earbud would work like a phone for up to eighty hours, even without a fresh charge. Eighty hours was a lot of time.

So Hide smiled with completely sincere relief at the news, thanked Akira and Amon profusely for both their kindness and their humanism and then spent the next week feverishly practicing the tricky maneuver of palming the device from his pants to his hand to his wrist to his mouth and back. Magic was never more than a passing interest, but he knew enough about sleight of hand to make each transition almost invisible. The key was to keep the object moving, resisting the urge to hold it in any one spot, while incorporating other bland looking movements to cover his tracks.

Hide practiced the rhythm of shifting the package from one place to the next until he could do it in the dark and in the shower and with one hand tied to his belt. Electronics, even tough ones like the earbud, which he'd plucked from some hapless underling's collar several weeks ago, would be easily damaged by dampness or electricity. He double wrapped the device in an unlubricated condom, something else lifted from an unsuspecting pocket, and a bit of saran wrap for good measure. He felt the weight of it against his belly walking through the corridor, tucked neatly into the band of his underwear, but kept his hands plenty visible until they reached the final room. Akira smiled at him in the odd, plastic kind of way she had when forced to perform a duty she found distasteful. Amon, of course, hovered beside her, huge, dark and intimidating as an idling tank.

"Just remember to keep 3 meters of distance. It might look like your friend, but the Eyepatch has a long history of aggressive behavior and ghouls don't…eh…do well in captivity." Akira said, sniffing in evident irritation.

"You betcha!" Hide said, beaming like an idiot and using the opportunity to thrust his hands into his pockets.

He snatched the package between two fingers, folding it into the crease to be flush with the back of his hand. He would only be able to hold it there for a few seconds, but that would be plenty of time.

"Hands up. One last check, okay?" Amon said, stepping forward.

"Sure." Hide replied, producing both hands in a flourish, palms up with the package snuggly out of sight against the back.

"Now the back." Amon sighed, sounding bored.

"Right, 'Kay…" Hide replied, slipping it back to his palm.

"Arms up."

Hide nodded, smoothly transferring the package to his mouth, tucking it under his tongue. Amon patted him down, checking the waistband where the little device had been held only a moment before. The check took longer than Hide would have liked and he whistled around the package to ease his nerves, which was much harder than he had initially thought, but produced the desired effect of setting his captors at ease and providing a subtle distraction. Not to mention that since he was whistling, no one bothered to check his mouth.

"Fine. Okay. You can go in now. Just for a few minutes." Akira said, tapping her earpiece and nodding to some unseen operative.

Hide nodded and rubbed his hands together, suddenly even more nervous and allowing the emotion to show for the first time. Amon smiled a little, just a twitch of his lips, the expression probably what passed for sympathy. The outer door slid open without a sound, revealing another door, this one considerably heavier. He would only have one chance at this, just one, and if he failed, they would probably both be killed.

OoOoOoO

Kaneki knew something was happening. The change was palpable, more than obvious in the absence of any electricity for almost a week and in the absolute and unrelenting silence from the intercom. Despite his occasional, and always polite, questions, the voice on the other side of the whiteness was stubbornly silent. He cocked his head, chewing lightly on a fingernail, and resisted the urge to crack his knuckles. His rationed meals increased a bit in size and became more regular, the lights were turned off for 10 hours every day to provide some semblance of regular day and night cycling. He was grateful for the change, but not quite naive enough to think that the small comforts signified any degree of compassion from his captors. Once, he would have thought so, or hoped so, or at least hoped to think so. Now, he observed the increased regularity of the lights and the food and recognized the situation for what it was: a very rigidly controlled environment to support an experiment. Either he had finally truly incensed the primary researcher or interrogator or whatever _or_ the man had been replaced. Kaneki thought the later infinitely more likely given such an abrupt change in his treatment.

Some days he wanted to pace, but resisted the urge, funneling the energy instead into his increasingly rigorous exercise regimen. More food meant more energy. More energy could be used to build more muscle. More muscle meant greater strength, higher endurance and a higher likelihood of being able to protect Hide and the others if he was ever given the chance. Besides, pacing would be a blatant indication to his captors that he understood what they were doing, or thought he did, and that their actions were having an effect on him. His sanity was suffering, Yamori was the first to tell him so and he would know, both he and Rize were practically experts on the subject and they would certainly know. The voices in his head, who had something like hatred for each other, agreed at least on this one point, that the careful fortress protecting his mind was beginning to crack.

Mostly, the damage was coming from uncertainty, from not knowing what the change might mean or how to react. The rest was from trying not to react and perhaps a bit from reacting anyway, Kaneki wasn't sure, he tried not to think about it. Without the voice on the other side of the whiteness, there was nothing to interact with, no nidus upon which to impose a goal. He began counting, backwards from 1000 by 7, the exercise as deeply ingrained into his psyche as the hunger for human flesh was into his body. The numbers were cut in to his desperate brain, over and over, until the scars had scars and they had scars even though he knew that he actually had _no_ scars, none at all really, not on the outside. He wished that he did, that his stubbornly smooth flesh would open and bleed and pucker and scar and that the destruction could have some kind of substantiation. Kaneki thought he was beginning to understand why Yamori killed and tortured and killed again and again and again like some kind of compulsive disease and it wasn't the reason he had presumed before. He thought that the pain and death was a kind of revenge, but maybe it was just a vain attempt to make the outside more like the _inside_ and gain a bit of harmony between the two. The realization was frightening and when he pulled the curtain closed on the notion, tried to ignore the blossoming logic, the fabric was painfully thin. He wanted to scream and didn't. Not today, if it was really daytime, or not tonight or not, not for a while yet, because he still had time. He knew how to endure and they were just beginning to tap his resiliency, _beginning_ , only a scratch so far.

He replayed memories and felt comforted for a while, a long while, maybe even days or minutes or whatever came first. The increased food was having an unfortunate side effect as well, because with more energy his mind moved faster and with better clarity and the crushing boredom was worse. Kaneki resisted the urge to mark days with the periods of light or darkness and instead counted the fibers in the blanket on the platform that was a bed, a chair, a table and occasionally a makeshift operating theater in a pinch if needed. He wrote Chinese characters and sentences in English on the walls and the floor with the condensation from his breath and a careful fingertip and tried to remember passages from books and quote them by heart. He thought of Hide and worked through various scenarios in his mind, building mazes to solve. Of course, as Rize often reminded him, Hide was probably dead. Maybe they both were. He wasn't sure. He wasn't sure he cared. Either way he would get to see his best, his childhood friend again and the notion was more comforting than anything he had come up with for many, many, many heartbeats.

The food increased a little more and Kaneki wondered if they thought he wouldn't notice, or maybe hoped that he wouldn't, or that he would, or maybe the gesture was less important than he thought and simply the product of a need for greater efficiency. Maybe one of the other ghouls died and they thought the extra meat should go somewhere, waste not, want not and all. Rize certainly agreed with the sentiment even if the binge-eating she-devil couldn't be bothered to care about anything else, certainly not who the meat had been or why they had died or if, after all, the body was someone he knew. The thought caught in him a bit, tangled like a rose thorn in a woolen coat, sticking and poking and digging in until it was making him bleed. What if the body was a classmate? What if it was one of his teachers? What if the meat he devoured each and every day in a vain attempt to retain some degree of fighting strength was actually someone he loved? What if it was Hide, and even more frightening, what if he never even _knew_? Kaneki couldn't decide what would be worse, if the sheer horrific, grotesquery of eating his dearest friend would be worse than Hide simply dying and having his body be thrown into the garbage somewhere. There was a very high chance that he would never know, that he would die here and Hide would live or not live, eaten or not eaten, without anything to indicate one eventuality or the other.

Kaneki thought the thought, over and over and over, until all the color seemed washed out of the idea leaving only the bare, pencil precise outline behind as a kind of formula. He played every scenario, absorbed the pain, watched and studied every sickening detail until it felt almost numb. There was clarity at the end, at the conclusion of every if-then pathway, a kind of relief from the anxiety. If Hide was dead, he would see him when he died too, and that was okay, in the end it was okay, everything would be okay. No matter what death was like, if Hide was there it would be better than this. If Hide lived and Kaneki died, then at least Hide lived awhile longer and maybe could be happy and that was soothing too, the endpoint in stark focus. If the CCG had already killed Hide, killed Hide and fed him to Kaneki as a last sadistic gesture, well, at least maybe in the end it was something like touching, a last connection, an ugly, awful, ugly, _ugly_ substitute for an embrace, but better than nothing at all. Better than if they threw him away. Better than if they fed him to someone _else_ , someone who wouldn't know, wouldn't appreciate, wouldn't ponder and agonize and _suffer_ over every bite like it was made of his own miserable, bleeding heart. Either way, if Hide was dead, there was mercy because then he wouldn't have to watch what Kaneki was going to _do_ to these people when the time finally came.

So Kaneki came to the end of his meditations and counted the fibers on his blanket and then named them and then gave them surnames too, it was only fitting. He did pushups. He did sit-ups. He did every exercise he had ever learned or read about and a few that he made up trying to combine other things. He broke the bones in his index finger and watched as the digit healed, straightened, the livid bruises clearing, all within one hundred and ninety four heartbeats. A kind of peace descended into his mind, a state of emptiness, maybe it was enlightenment or perhaps just apathy, Kaneki was not sure which. He had a plan. He had three thousand four hundred and eighty two plans and the only thing stopping him from initiating any one of them was the last shred of hope that Hide might still be alive, so the answer was to wait and in the end he found that he could. Maybe he could even wait a very long time, maybe even years, or minutes, or heartbeats, whatever came first.

Then, quite unexpectedly, during a cycle of lighting he had come to think of as "day" despite the psychological surrender such a thing implied, a door opened from one of his favorite seams in the wall and Hide walked into the whiteness. There was no alarm, no blinking red lights or escaping steam to indicate that yes, indeed, someone was walking into the room for the first time since the abandoned attempts at torture. No announcement over the intercom, or threats or even the tapping on the wall that occasionally accompanied his meals. Just a wall becoming a door with the scintillating whisper of pressurized air and Hide stepping casually into the room the same way he would on any other day.

Kaneki saw him, the same badly dyed blondish hair and dazzlingly easy smile, the harsh lights catching every freckle, brown eyes as warm and rich as a cup of fresh coffee poured carefully by the hand of someone both familiar and adored. Oh, and the memory of that last cup of coffee, sipped like a shred of salvation in a quiet, comfortable café while shells exploded outside. It was almost over-powering. The tears gathered in his eyes, but wouldn't fall. Kaneki was holding too still, vision swimming, but without the last, minute facial contraction needed to spill the water down his cheeks.

Hide was alive and here, here with him, and not even some kind of hallucination because the badly died blondish hair was quite a bit longer too, brushing well past his shoulders to hang in soft waves against a chest that was thicker with muscle than he remembered. Hide didn't look like a paper cutout from one of his memories or even a bloody cadaver from one of his nightmares, no, he just looked like…Hide. He looked perfectly Hide, _smelled_ like Hide, moved like Hide. Perhaps he was a little more muscular, and a little paler too, and with a bit more steel in his eyes, but unmistakable all the same. Kaneki pulled in a breath, feeling his ribs stretch with the air, but forgot how to exhale.

Somehow, he really didn't _know_ how, Hide was just as he should be: The same as he had been before, but with enough texture, enough growth and change and beautiful inconstancy to be real. Face open and yet furtive, eyes filled with everything, Hide looked as comfortable in his bland, dove gray hospital clothes as he did in his favorite pair of jeans. The smile, like a lady's fan, hiding and revealing at the same time, was even more infectious in reality than it was in his dreams. All of it was _normal_ somehow, miraculously untarnished by the clean, white ghastliness surrounding them both. Hide was immune to it, unvanquished by the sterile prison, alive when Kaneki had forced himself to believe with almost every thought that he must be dead.

Kaneki had been doing reverse crunches with his ankles hooked into the edge of the platform for support, and now he just hung there, suspended half-way between one movement and another. The ghoul was frozen, transfixed, with his back hovering above the ground and the momentum of the exercise still thrumming through his body. His abdomen was quivering with the strain, sweat dripping like acid down his face and the whole position _had_ to look weird, but moving felt almost dangerous, as if everything might shatter and fall apart. As if the very moment, this moment, the moment he spent almost every _other_ moment thinking about might be too fragile to sustain anything else happening and he knew it was real, but felt afraid anyway.

He waited another breath; not his own, but one of Hide's. He still hadn't quite remembered how to breathe, and his own heartbeats were too fast to be reliable. Kaneki finally released the air as he levered into what was almost a seated position, body moving too slowly. Hide chuckled softly as he scuttled onto the platform and the sound was so sudden and wonderful after all the silence that Kaneki thought he might cry. He tried to smile instead and ended up with more of a spastic twitch of his face, but his childhood friend didn't seem to mind. Hide never minded, not even that he was a ghoul, not even that he had to _eat_ people to survive. Kaneki realized he had never actually told him what that meant, how precious it was to have such acceptance. He never really had the chance, everything happened too fast, but Kaneki knew _should_ have. He should have at least taken the time to say thank you, to say something about the way Hide made everything easy, comfortable and normal no matter what was happening.

He was a bad friend. Rize thought so too, but at least on this topic, Kaneki didn't put too much weight on her judgement. She was occasionally quite wise, but both Rize and Yamori were monsters, the worst kind of monsters, the only kind of living, sentient, being he felt a little bit good about eating. Hide took a few more steps, whistling softly as his gaze roved over the whiteness, taking in the nothing that it was while still keeping eye contact. Kaneki stood, suddenly very much aware that his face was covered in sweat from the exercise he'd been doing. He tried to move, to say something, but only his lips moved. Even then, he wasn't quite sure if the motion actually managed to move out into his flesh or if the only part that happened was just the intention in his brain. Kaneki wanted to laugh or maybe scream or maybe nothing, maybe just _breathe_ and bask in the smell of another person, quite possibly his favorite person, after so many heartbeats of scent blindness. He almost managed it too and then Hide's face crumpled from the brave, amazingly brave, perfect, fucking _necessary,_ smile that was more like deliverance than a facial expression had any reason to be and he was struck dumb all over again.

"Hide…" Kaneki managed, voice dry and far too soft.

The word, the name, was barely thrust into the air before Hide was against him, arms wrapped around his shoulders with so much strength that he almost couldn't feel him trembling. Kaneki gasped, surprised, trying to react, lips parting to speak, but the words were lost as Hide's mouth pressed to his own with a desperate kind of insistence. There was something almost like force behind the touch, but without the taint of violence or cruelty. Stubbornness, yes, perhaps stubbornness was a better word. After all, the press of Hide's body was still innocent, frantic and obviously purposeful even though they were kissing, _kissing,_ actually kissing! God!

Mouths angled together like people do in the movies or the way couples sometimes will if they don't care who is watching and Kaneki had never actually _done_ this with anyone before, but he was glad. No one would be better than Hide. His first kiss and it felt so tender. More real than he thought it would be, more intense, more exciting. A kiss stolen in hell, and it was with Hide, and it was beyond anything he had ever known.

Wet heat, spread like melted honey over his mouth, or maybe more like fresh blood, which was actually even better, but not as good as this, Kaneki had never had _anything_ as good as Hide's mouth against his own. The touch of his lips, smooth, dry and so, so, so terribly warm was overwhelming, but stimulating too, stirring like an excellent book or a piece of poetry or a ray of pure evening sunshine piercing through the clouds. His heart was racing and his belly melting, knees almost weak with the searing heat the touch sparked in his numbed and forgotten flesh. Hide's lips were muscular, but somehow still soft, like a silk glove fitted over a swordsman's hand, like nothing he had ever felt or read about or even imagined before. Not the way anyone had ever said a kiss could be. Hide's lips moved, speaking, but without sound, trying to convey something even as Kaneki stood there like a piece of stone in a tsunami, motionless and almost unimportant in the storm of emotion. He wanted to pay attention. He wanted to respond, but he was too consumed by the sensation, because touch was only one facet, one piece, one tiny component of the experience and there was more, so much more than something as simple as touch.

The heat, the softness, the aching strength of such profound intimacy after weeks of isolation and it was nothing compared to the _taste_ of the kiss and the smell of Hide's body. Hide always smelled good, more since he became a ghoul, but nothing out of the norm. A heightened sense of smell was expected, usually more of a problem than not, and most humans smelled sort of appetizing to some degree. This however…this was totally different and what he smelled before was barely an echo in comparison. Rolling waves of something aromatic and rich, luscious and yet familiar. It was a taste like sesame, but warm and reminiscent of cinnamon, sweet enough to resemble a confection, but sharper, finished with a hint of sandalwood musk. A tantalizing and complicated smell, familiar yet unique, more like perfume than food.

Whatever it was, he wanted to be drenched in it, bathe in it, _drown_ in it if need be, anything to keep drinking it in. His lips parted for his friend's questing tongue, wordless surrender as easy as falling through the air, and the taste intensified. Kaneki couldn't resist him. Not that he would resist, not even this, which was so much, _so_ much, more than he could process and _god_ , how had he never noticed how strong Hide's mouth was, how decadent, how utterly maddening? Before he could even think enough to be embarrassed, Kaneki was moaning a little. The sound began more like a whimper and suddenly grew into a snarl, fierce, deep and much too loud. Hide's tongue surged against his own, slick, velvet muscle pulsing into his mouth and stroking, deliberately, and passing an object.

The logical part of his mind recognized that something important was happening. He knew immediately that the kiss was a ploy, a cover used to pass him something without being observed by the ever-present eyes of their captors. He knew that Hide was using the opportunity as best he could. Whatever the slippery little cylinder sliding against his tongue was, it might mean the difference between a slow death and freedom. As soon as he felt the package slip into his mouth, Kaneki swallowed it. He trusted Hide. Kaneki would carefully, quietly, regurgitate it later when there was less chance they would be watching and see what his friend had brought him. For now though, the cool logic that the luscious caress was merely a well-timed diversion, remained a whisper in the cacophony of his thoughts. A molten ache was building low in his belly, and the heat of it combined with the taste of Hide's mouth eclipsed everything else.

The kiss was a maneuver, a strategy, a well thought out trick and nothing more, and he knew that too, but he was also very much aware that he couldn't _stop_. He couldn't stop holding him, kissing him, _tasting_ him. Ah! The cinnamon was stronger than before, warm on his palate where the succulence of sesame still lingered. Kaneki licked at his lips, chasing the flavor, shivering at the delicacy of the flesh against his tongue. The skin there was so thin, thin enough that he could almost feel the pulsing of the blood underneath, the firm thrill of the life that was his most cherished companion. With a hungry sigh, Kaneki sucked Hide's lip into his mouth. The taste of Hide, the feel of his arms and his skin and of his heart thundering against Kaneki's chest was too sensuous, too luscious and too encompassing to escape. Any thought of stopping, of playing along, of regaining enough space to think rationally and make a plan was incinerated in the mounting roar of the fire coursing through his blood.

Kaneki felt the forgotten flesh of his penis rising between his thighs, painfully aroused, aching the way it had only a few other times in his life. The faint realization that under any other circumstances he would have been mortified, that their friendship might be damaged, that Hide probably didn't even _want_ to kiss him sifted like a vapor through his overheated brain and was consumed in the heat. As Hide pulled back for a breath, Kaneki already knew that it was too late. He needed him. He needed this. He needed more.

OoOoOoO

"I'm…I'm so sorry…Kaneki, I…" Hide began, voice quaking and breathless.

In the space of less than a moment, the pause between heartbeats, there was a thunderclap of movement. The motion was too abrupt to perceive. Hide was suddenly against the wall, the wind knocked from his lungs and his childhood friend's lips pressed desperately against his mouth once again. His body trembled, the shock of the ghoul's inhuman speed still rippling through his flesh. His lungs burned, trying to recapture the stolen air, and Hide was left gasping helplessly in Kaneki's arms like a fish pulled from the water. The sudden and uncomfortable knowledge that his skull had been shielded from the momentum only by the granite cradle of Kaneki's fingers was a dim echo in the mounting roar of feeling, of Kaneki's mouth on his mouth, Kaneki's tongue against his tongue.

The ghoul moved, pressing Hide's shuddering lips farther open with his jaw, tongue mapping his palate with tingling strokes. The sensation was so different from before. The embrace was suddenly filled with deafening emotion instead of simply surprise and a heady kind of relief, the same feeling as drinking water after days of being thirsty or seeing the sun after weeks of storms. Hide knew in some small, marginally sane part of his mind that this was not a kiss of obligation, of necessity, and not something that could be conveniently excused or forgotten for the sake of appearances. Kaneki's mouth was demanding a _response_ , a reaction, something more difficult and profound than unseen contraband passed surreptitiously from the outside. No. The roaring inferno he felt surging against him like a boiling tide was real, true, passion… _sexual_ passion.

Hide wasn't a virgin. He knew what desire felt like, what the glowing need in his friend's eyes meant, but the intensity was startling all the same. Kaneki liked girls or, more accurately, he liked girls in _books_. He was an introvert, a pragmatist, practically a fucking _ascetic_ most of the time and not the kind of person anyone would ever imagine as seductive. Yet, the way he was moving was too overwhelming, sensual and fast, like a woman pulling off satin gloves or a serpent gliding through warm water. He kissed like he fought, gracefully and without any hesitation, not like anyone Hide had ever kissed before and the experience was shockingly arousing. Here in his arms, in the jaws of a predator, Hide felt a thrill of heat far beyond anything kindled by his prior dalliances and maybe it was _because_ Kaneki was not a girl or because of the sheer magnetism of his body or simply because the arousal was sharpened with fear.

Kaneki pressed him to the wall with the force of a locomotive, cupping his skull the way a king might a crystal goblet, demanding a kind of submission Hide was not entirely sure he could give. Despite the days in confinement and the lingering shadows like bruises under his eyes, his childhood friend was startlingly beautiful. The snow-white hair, as soft as a rabbit's pelt drifted against his fingers, moving in a scintillating gale over mismatched eyes. One eye was the one he knew, the human eye, a familiar pastel-kind of slate for the iris, a black so mild it was almost gray, like rain washed slate or frosted coal, with the crisp white peeking at the edges. It was familiar, expressive and just as he remembered, but the other eye, the glaring ember of a lurid ruby set upon a black sclera as smooth and reflective as obsidian, was strangely aesthetic too. A storm of feeling raged in those eyes, the emotion just a little different in each and yet unmistakably Kaneki.

He blushed darkly as the sinuous creature who had once been his shy, awkward friend mapped his mouth with his tongue, nipping almost aggressively at his lips, sliding one of his cool hands under his shirt. No one had ever kissed him the way Kaneki Ken, another boy, no, a _man_ and a ghoul was kissing him right now. Hide couldn't resist him, opening his mouth, sucking his tongue, obeying the unspoken command for more, _more_ obedience. A finger tipped with an ebony nail brushed his nipple, soft as an autumn wind, curious, but very much aware what such a caress would mean. Hide startled, gasping, but the motion was stifled in his friend's arms. He was caught, held fast in the embrace, ensnared. Moving against Kaneki was like moving against a mountain, the strength flowing through each limb like tension through the steel cables of bridge. The ghoul had one hand cupped over his skull and the other against his chest and the other…Hide frowned. He felt _something_ against his wrist, brushing the skin almost like a finger, close enough that for a moment he thought it was. The touch, always brief, was bath-warm, almost like feverish skin, but soft as the downy top of a dandelion.

He glanced up, looking at where the blood-red and sparkling mauve appendage of Kaneki's Kagune tentatively stroked his wrist, weaving almost indecisively. Hide's eyes widened and for a moment he tensed with alarm. On an intellectual level he knew that Kaneki would have one. Any idiot knew that _all_ ghouls had a predatory organ, the kagune, but seeing it up _close_ while his friend was busy trying to lick every corner inside of his mouth was another matter entirely. Hide sucked in a breath. In a heartbeat, the kagune shifted, solidified, forming a keen edge that looked exceedingly sharp. Knowing that they were already moving into uncertain territory, knowing that in another breath they might both come back to reality didn't change anything. Hide still opened his hand, reached across the centimeter of empty air, and stroked a finger along the broad edge of the kagune's blade. The feel of it was so smooth, almost slick, morphing under his very touch into a more gentle configuration and then Kaneki was moaning, the sound almost tortured with pleasure.

Hide barely had time to wonder. The kagune surged around his wrist and Kaneki's tongue was once against pouring like magma into his mouth, lapping, stroking, sending electrical arcs of pure ecstasy skittering through his jaw. The embrace was as firm and unrelenting as a cobra's coils and Hide knew somewhere in the dark, instinctual part of himself that he should be frightened. Any other person, any rational person, would have been terrified with a ghoul so close, kissing like the next motion could be a _bite_ , but Hide felt the restraint in Kaneki's body too. No matter the situation, no matter how far they went or how fucked up things were, he knew he was safe. With the same deep trust that he knew the sun would rise, Hide knew that Kaneki Ken, the Eyepatch Ghoul, would never hurt him.


	2. Chapter 2

Sharp as a Feather and Soft as a Blade

In the odd semi-darkness of his hospital room, late enough at night to feel veiled and yet not quite late enough to allay his fears of being discovered, Hide clutched his phone and checked for the seven thousandth time to see if a Bluetooth device had connected. There was nothing yet. Seconds crawled by like hours, each breath longer than the last. The soft and yet somehow insistent lights of the various monitors pulsed, casting shifting shadows, all slightly off rhythm with each other and occasionally startling him with the sheer non-conformity of their activity. He licked his lips, refreshed the screen, checked the power, but everything was functioning normally; functioning, just not _connecting_. The digital clock on the wall was in military time and, as always, he needed a moment to order his thoughts before he could read it. The time was just a few minutes past midnight, not late enough, not by far, not really. The cardiac monitor beeped and then squawked because his heart _skipped_ a beat at the sound. Hide giggled.

None of the lights or minute sounds of the room had disturbed him so much before, not in the weeks since his erstwhile rescue, but then again everything was different now. Tonight was different. Today had been different.

Today his best friend, transformed into one of the most powerful ghouls in existence, clutched him like a fragile lifeline, like something precious made of porcelain, like some kind of salvation. Today his best friend wrapped him in the shocking heat of an organ designed by nature to kill and used the alien embrace to kiss him instead. Today Kaneki Ken, an ultra-nerd with the libido of a half-conscious salamander, looked at him with enough sexual hunger to make his bone marrow quiver. He was still quivering. Hide licked his lips and forced himself not to shiver outright as the memory of Kaneki's fearsome kisses chased like heat lightning through his thoughts. The muscle of Kaneki's tongue was so strong, so bold, demanding submission, caressing every secret surface of every tooth and deeper to toy with the most sensitive part of his palate. And that was just his _tongue_.

The silken caress of his kagune, both sensual and terrifyingly alien, was not something that he would ever be able to adequately describe. The muscular, fever-warmth of the appendage, winding like a particularly slick serpent around his wrist and then tightening just enough to encourage him to open his hand so that it could, somehow, pool into his palm like molten steel was _not_ sexy the way a nice set of big tits were. Yet, he couldn't forget it, the mere thought made him hard enough to ache.

He knew that most people would have been terrified, he should have been terrified, but the memory was too opulent and the situation too strange. They were prisoners of any enemy too cruel to recognize Kaneki's humanity and too biased to notice Hide's agenda. What was supposed to be a lie, a ploy, a distraction, somehow turned out to be a spark set to a life-time of dry tinder that no one knew was waiting to ignite. Despite his original intention, Hide was now stuck untangling a snarled mess of hope, affection and sexual desire, all for another _male_. Not to mention that the Eyepatch ghoul was the same as his awkward, nerdy, bookworm-of-a-babyhood-friend in the first place. Making sense out of even half of the story would drive a normal person insane. Starting with the truth that Kaneki Ken and the magnificent monster with the snow-white hair and blood-red tentacles could be the same person, he also had to consider the psychological torture his friend had lived through. There was every possibility that Kaneki didn't know what he was doing, that the kiss was maybe a cry for help, the savage howl of a maddened beast chained in a squalid cage.

Logically, insanity was the most reasonable explanation by far, but the notion just didn't _feel_ right. The touch of him and the moist luster of his eyes all seemed so consistent with the boy Hide grew up with, the Kaneki he knew and loved. He thought about those mismatched eyes, the fire stirring in their depths, and the depth of feeling the look had conveyed. There was madness in those eyes, true, he saw it there swimming with everything else like a shark cruising through a coral reef, more like an echo than true emotion. No, more than anything, there was desire. Hide hugged himself, feeling his blood heat and rush lower as the shock of rampant arousal ricocheted through his system again only to fizzle away into a sensation closer to terror. He couldn't help it. The memory of Kaneki's touch was too closely associated with the sizzling snap of the laser firing, one experience bleeding into the other. He could remember the pulsing heat in the ghoul's eyes changing, just minutely, merely shifting from lust to rage with the subtlety of sunlight dimming to dusk. Even hours later he was affected, his face still damp with cold sweat, heart beating like a rabbit jerking itself to death in a trap. And through everything, Kaneki had looked so _calm_.

"Shit…" He muttered, shaking his head.

Hide had to focus. He had to breathe. He had to _think_ and _not_ panic. He knew that his friend had the earbud, swallowed it actually, but the device was well protected enough that a little stomach acid shouldn't matter. Unless the digestive system of a ghoul was different somehow, which Hide had to admit was a distinct possibility, he should be able to regurgitate the device in functional condition.

In retrospect, he should have gone with the explosive; at least then Kaneki would have a way to escape if things went sideways. There was still time, though, no need to second guess himself yet. Kaneki might be waiting for a moment when his surveillance was less, or he was still recovering from his wound or…well, he might be dead. Hide shook his head. No, the CCG didn't want the Eyepatch as a corpse, but as a _weapon_. Dead ghouls made shitty weapons, everyone knew that. Pragmatic logic, at least as it pertained to the requirements of paranoid bastards who were basically at war with the ghouls, was a fucking certainty. He just needed to be patient. He just needed to keep waiting and focus on the positives of the situation.

The CCG let him see Kaneki, which was a victory in itself, and the ghoul had actually looked fairly healthy. Instead of finding his friend wasted, maimed or shattered as Hide had forced himself to mentally prepare for, Kaneki was bulkier and more muscular than he remembered. They were feeding him and they weren't torturing him enough to break the steel trap of Kaneki's intellect, at least not yet. Having him sound in body and mind was more than Hide could have asked for, really. His friend was not starved or broken and obviously more than ready for a fight. He could still feel the echoes of savage tension radiating from the Eyepatch ghoul's body vibrating in his own over-stimulated flesh. Hide swallowed, hands trembling. He glanced at the clock. Only 3 minutes difference since when he checked last.

"Keep it together Nagachika." Hide whispered to himself.

There was time. There was time. Time he could use to think, to strategize, so that when Kaneki did call, and he would, he _would_ , they wouldn't have to waste precious battery life hatching out details. He nodded to himself. The encounter offered useful information, both about Kaneki and the CCG. Hide took a breath. Logic was the only weapon he could use for the time being and he would need it to save them. Everything that happened was important, no detail was too small, nothing they could afford to overlook at any rate and he needed to think about it before the memory faded.

Carefully, because the events from the day were still as fresh and raw in his mind as a new wound, Hide thought back to the last moments of Kaneki's embrace. When the laser beam emerged from a slot in the wall and neatly sliced the kagune from Hide's wrist, neither he nor Kaneki could have moved fast enough to dodge it. The laser came from the right, the same wall facing the bed platform, likely aimed from behind a disguised viewing window. The ghoul didn't even scream. Hide was sure about that, mostly because _he_ had been screaming his head off and the image of Kaneki's calm, almost dispassionate face was such an odd counterpoint. Despite how terribly sensitive the organ seemed to be, despite the way his friend _moaned_ like a woman when he touched it, Kaneki weathered the injury like a lizard losing its tail. Such a cool reaction could only mean that he already knew something was coming, that he was prepared for an attack even as they…kissed…

Hide closed his eyes and took a breath. The kiss was not strategically important, what came after _was_. The laser fired and then he was shoved behind the kagune as CCG flooded the room. Kaneki fought like a guided missile, even with the distraction, and that was important too because the fact that he was able to focus despite the wound also implied that it was relatively minor. Minor, but still painful. As he shifted his kagune from a mass of sensually stroking tentacles to an impenetrable shield, Hide hadn't missed the way Kaneki shivered or the way the blood drained from his face. Damage to the kagune must hurt a lot.

The memory was fuzzier after the battle started, more difficult to describe, and Hide wondered if he'd gone into shock. The monitor beeped as his heart rhythm faltered again. He knew that being so close to Kaneki and then being pulled away was making him more anxious than usual. Anxiety was a survival instinct, the prey instinct, a way to stay ahead of predators and avoid being eaten. Hide swallowed. On that count, at least, he failed. The kiss was so consuming that he hadn't heard them shouting, hadn't heard the warnings, the sharp, electrical sound of the laser firing so abrupt and startling that he'd almost jumped out of his skin.

He was obviously defective as far as instinct went anyway. Even the thought of Kaneki, of his friend's predatory lips and teeth and his scintillating, dominating kagune made him a little weak and _not_ with fear. No, the feeling was a mad kind of longing heavily colored by the insistent need for _more_. If any being in the world were to kill him, if a predator were to one day follow nature's law and eat his worthless body, he hoped, prayed, that it would be Kaneki. Better to be eaten by a friend, by someone who loved him, because that way there would at least be something in the act more than simple necessity. Yes, he knew now that Kaneki loved him and not in the fraternal way he had once suspected. He was fairly certain that the ghoul would try to deny it at the next available opportunity in a rather misguided attempt to protect him, but facts were still facts. Even more alarming, Hide was quickly becoming aware of the fact that he also loved the ghoul in return. His phone chirped softly. A Bluetooth device was connected.

Hide's heart skipped, the monitor beeping almost indignantly as he fumbled to bring the phone to his ear, to adjust the speaker for two way communication. His hands were shaking now, truly shaking instead of just sort of quivering beneath the skin and the illuminated buttons were suddenly too small. He finally saw the comm button flash to green.

"Kaneki," Hide whispered urgently into the phone, "Kaneki…fuck…is it you?"

"Yes." The soft reply was almost too quiet to make out.

"Are you alright? Are you…Or did they? Shit…Did they hurt you?" Hide blurted out, vision blurring as the tears he'd been too hyped-up to cry suddenly gushed from his eyes in a searing flood.

"…A bit. I'm fine." Kaneki replied after what felt like an endless heartbeat.

"You're still a crappy liar," Hide chuckled, rubbing the moisture off his cheeks.

"Don't worry about me. I'm quite well. Very healthy." Kaneki said in the same stiff way he used when reading Chinese. Or lying.

"Bullshit."

"Listen, Hide…" The ghoul began with a sigh and Hide could almost feel him looking away.

"Stop," Hide said sharply, "Just stop right there. Let me say what I need to say before you get started with something stupid like 'it was a mistake' or 'I didn't mean it' or 'you should just leave me' blah, blah blah..."

" _Please_ , Hide. I'm fine, I really, really am. You need to go. Go tonight. You need to get out of here before…"

"Stop. Number one: I'm not leaving you behind in this dump and that's final. And I do mean final, as in non-negotiable, Kaneki." Hide began, counting off his fingers.

"Hide, no! You _should_ just leave me!"

"Number two," Hide continued undaunted, "It wasn't really what I had planned, but I enjoyed kissing you. Like, I really enjoyed it, a lot, and I would not be opposed to letting you do it again, necessarily. You know, if we both live and stuff."

There was silence for a while as Kaneki digested the words. Hide swallowed. Dealing with Kaneki when he'd already made up his mind about something was always tricky and Hide knew that if he waffled, even a little, there would be no turning back. The last thing he needed was Kaneki smashing the earbud in a fit of self-inflicted martyrdom and leaving him back at square one to contemplate the sickening notion of escaping while leaving his best friend alone to die in the CCG's basement. Anyone who thought about the situation for a half a second would realize that the chances of one escaping alone was infinitely less likely than if they worked _together_. Not to mention that cutting ties also meant using plain, old cruelty, but even Kaneki could be brutal if he thought he was protecting somebody. His protective nature was a trait the CCG would almost certainly use against him if they ever figured it out, which was even _more_ reason not to act irrationally. For a smart person, his friend was actually shockingly dumb sometimes. Hide closed his shaking hands into fists as he waited.

"You…liked it?" Came the timid reply.

"Not gonna lie. I've never kissed a guy before and I don't think I'm really what one would call gay, per se, but…yeah…I liked it. I can't stop thinking about it." Hide said, relaxing a fraction.

"Oh." The ghoul replied.

"I mean, we've been friends for so long, I guess I feel a little bad not realizing. Now, I mean, I know it's really different…between guys…but that doesn't mean I don't want to do it. I would definitely let you…you know…do those things…" His mouth was dry.

It was a lot of plain truth after weeks of lying and he wasn't used to it. Kaneki was quiet on the other line for a while, but he could still hear him breathing, maybe even breathing a little faster, so he definitely hadn't hung up. Hide waited for him, resisting the urge to just keep yapping. His friend might be a stubborn, but also fairly predictable and now Hide knew that ghoulhood, at least, didn't alter the simple truth that was Kaneki a virgin. Virginity, the lack of experience, was something he could work with, something he could use to save them, at least as long as he could muster the courage.

Addressing the unspoken questions directly, without room for misinterpretation would throw the ghoul off, maybe give him enough time to make him see reason, and if the offer was _sex_ , well, even Kaneki might be less inclined to refuse immediately. He licked his lips, trying not to be nervous. There was nothing to be nervous about. Kaneki was still reacting normally, like the sheltered college student he used to be, and it was reassuring. Hide was reassured. Even so, his face was hot, blushing like _he_ was the one with no experience in the darkness of his lonely hospital room. He meant every word, but it was still hard just to _say_ it all so openly.

"I…I may want to do things you may…not like…" The voice was so soft Hide could barely hear him.

"We can figure that out together. I'm kind of a perv, so you might be surprised!" Hide laughed.

"But…"

"And finally, reason number three," He began once he was sure Kaneki wouldn't just hang up, "We both have people we care about on the outside as well. If the CCG really figures out what you are, how you tick, how long do you think it's going to take before they start trying to make _more_?"

"No."

"Yes, Kaneki. It's what they want." Hide whispered urgently.

"Impossible." The ghoul hissed.

"Is it? Do you actually know?" Hide asked softly.

"I'm a…a freak! A mistake! I'm like some kind of walking disaster, you know it too, don't deny it, and no one, _no_ one in their right mind would…Why would anyone do that?" Kaneki asked, sounding almost like himself, the voice of a young man too sheltered and fearful to even ask their professor questions in class. Hide sighed.

"Think about it, Kaneki," Hide began, gathering momentum, "You're tougher than the other ghouls, stronger with your kagune and you heal better too. What if the CCG had more like you, but trained, raised as kids, brainwashed into following their commands like puppets? What if they could use you to make an army of them. How long do you think the regular ghouls would last? Think about Touka, about Hinami…"

"I _do_ , that's why I came peacefully, and you…you were already…" Kaneki paused, sighing, "What else could I _do_ , Hide?"

Hide winced. Fuck, he didn't want to fight, not now, not with Kaneki of all people. Hide opened his mouth to argue and then closed it again. He had to be careful not hasty. The other boy would take his silence the wrong way, fill in the space with blame for himself, but at first, Hide didn't really know what to say. The reason both of them were in this mess was actually because _he_ was too weak, not Kaneki. He was too fragile to protect himself, getting shot by some stray bullet while wandering around trying to help, making everything worse. _He_ was the one at fault. He was the reason that Kaneki, a creature with almost god-like invincibility was at the mercy of the CCG. Anyone with an ounce of sense would know where the blame rested and it wasn't with Kaneki or his decisions. Hide shook his head to clear it and tried to answer coolly and rationally even though the hurt of his accountability for Kaneki's imprisonment stung like vinegar on flayed skin.

"I don't know and I'm not trying to second-guess your choices, okay? I just want to convince you that we need to get out of here and we need to do it _together_. I can't leave you. Even if I could force myself to do it, even if you were actually just _dead_ , I can't. I can't leave you here because that just gets everyone _else_ I care about killed!" Hide hissed at last.

"I won't let that happen, everything will be alright. You just need to…"

"Stop! Stop the bullshit! I can't leave you here to be studied and go on trying to live, knowing that my best friends' body is being torn apart and used to make goddamn one-eyed ghouls! Ghouls powerful enough to obliterate _both_ sides. I can't. That's it. Also…" Hide hesitated, but only long enough to make sure the words wouldn't come out sounding uncertain, "Also, I love you. I could never leave someone I love in a shitty place like this."

The silence on the other line was far more charged than any of the other pauses in their conversation and Hide found himself feeling nervous, almost the same way he did before a date. The similarity was ridiculous, but he was too scared to laugh. He was scared that Kaneki would deny it, that he would make up some excuse or outright reject the sentiment, all for the sake of misguided altruistic nonsense. Even though saying that he didn't care would be a lie, even though he had seen the emotion written into every single line of the ghoul's body, heavy in the weight of his tongue, as palpable as gravity, Kaneki would say anything to protect him. Hide knew that kind of reaction was a possibility and knowing should have been enough to prepare, but it wasn't. The words would still hurt too much. His heart quaked with the thought.

"You love me?" The question was whispered through the static on the line.

"Yes." Hide replied, feeling his face heat even more.

"Why?" Kaneki whispered and the sound was more like a sob.

"All the wrong reasons. Mostly your body. I'm a shallow guy, you know." Hide quipped as another flood of tears washed down his own face to drip unheeded into the folds of his bedsheets.

"You're trying to make me laugh." Kaneki accused.

"Is it working?"

"No," The ghoul said with a dry chuckle, "But I feel glad. I'm glad that you do, you know, that you do love me. I'm a bad person."

"You aren't and I do. Maybe even for a really long time. Maybe I've loved you this whole time and was just too stupid to figure it out." Hide said, shrugging to himself, grateful they were still talking.

"I love you too," Kaneki said softly, "I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry too, you know, I'm sorry for kissing you like that. I'm sorry for using something important that way. I'm not always a good person either." Hide whispered, the surface of the phone sticking uncomfortably to his cheek with the moisture.

"You are. You're kind. I'm…I'm the one that's…Ugh, god, I hate myself. I hate myself so much I can barely stand it. I'm a monster and a murderer and, even if that were all of it, I'm selfish too…horrible…horrible to think I can ever deserve something like your love…"

"Kaneki, don't…"

"No. I'm right. I am. You'll see too, because I'm not really sure I can stop it now. I love you too much! I _need_ you too much, Hide. I need you to be alive. If you aren't, I just…I just don't know what I'll become…" Kaneki said, his voice thick and urgent.

"I still love you. You know it. You know I love you no matter what you are. Idiot."

"Only because you don't really _know_ what I am." He whispered miserably.

His tone was darker now, rough, like blood-soaked velvet and filled with something like defeat. A small thrill of trepidation crawled up Hide's spine. He was relieved with the answer, but there was more of the black, cool, predatory calm in Kaneki's voice now too. The tone somehow the same as the chilly stoicism with which he turned to look at the place where his kagune had been cut earlier that day. Kaneki was afraid, but his _other_ self, the Eye-patch ghoul, was already resolved, anticipating the pain, and awaiting the violence with the tranquil perseverance of the already-damned. Both aspects of his friend were eerily familiar, the same person despite what either of them wanted to think. Deep down, Hide knew that the blackness was part of Kaneki too, just sharpened, his penchant for self-sacrifice made from a shackle into a blade, but the dissonance rattled all the same.

"I'm alive. We're both alive. That's all we need." Hide said, hating that it sort of came out sounding like an apology.

"Yeah…" Not quite an agreement.

"We have to escape. After that, we can talk about…the other stuff. Are you still healthy enough to fight?" Hide asked, "Even after today, after whatever it was they did to you?"

OoOoOoO

"Oh, yes." Kaneki replied, tracing a finger through the blood slowly coagulating on the floor of his cell, "Don't worry about my strength."

"Okay. That's good, it's perfect. And I sort of have a plan, but I don't know enough about the layout of the lower levels." Hide said, voice cheerful, but determined, trying to mask the fear.

Kaneki smiled a little, mouth trying to learn the expression again, and watched the gore drip down the walls. Hide was himself, just as perfectly unstoppable as ever; the exact same as he had always been and Kaneki loved him for staying so. Persevering, surviving without each new circumstance cutting its way into him and leaving marks; such a thing required more than mere human endurance, but Hide was amazing that way. Glittering and flawless, uncompromising as diamond, Hide was always the same and Kaneki knew he could never be so inexorable, no matter what kind of monster he turned into. Even now Kaneki was too affected, the walls he built both thick and fragile, the evil within too loud and too familiar by now. The only surprise was that Hide loved him anyway. Golden, popular, powerful, gorgeous Hide loved something like _him_ ; it was either a miracle or a catastrophe.

For now, maybe Hide was right and being alive was enough. At least he got to hear his precious friend's voice one more time before everything fell down. The ghoul tucked the precious earbud a bit more closely into his ear, glad he hadn't actually eaten anything else that day. Regurgitating the little device was easy enough, but he'd worried that the musculature of his stomach might have crushed it once he opened the condom and saw what it was. Hide couldn't have possibly known how much it would mean, being able to speak to him, to another person after so many days of silence, but he was grateful anyway. The others, the monsters, were too close tonight and the soft, static-riddle echoes of his friends' voice was practically salvation.

"We can't escape from your cell directly, there's too many doors, too many ways for them to control the direction we travel and slow us down. We'll have to do it from another vector, preferably a hallway." Hide said.

"The only part I know is the route from my cell to the main lab and I've only been there once." Kaneki replied after a pause that was probably too long.

"How many doors were there along with way?" Hide asked.

"Um, at least three. Maybe more." Kaneki replied, trying to remember.

"Okay, good, that's helpful. Any route with more than one door is better than your cell," Hide said.

Was it really helpful? Probably not, but Hide would try to encourage him anyway just to keep him invested, just as he usually did. Doors or no doors, Kaneki had no idea where they led. Each portal could be a neat route to the nearest parking lot, or another cell housing a half-starved, drug-maddened ghoul.

"What about your cell? How many doors?" Hide pushed.

"Just one, that I know of. It's on my left as I sit facing the wall that's actually a window. I've never seen anyone come or go from another opening, but when they drug me they might and I would never know." Kaneki said.

"Do you know when they're going to drug you?"

"Not always, but they always do it when they clean the room. They'll do it tomorrow." Kaneki whispered, the words dark despite his empty tone.

"You…made a mess?"

Kaneki wasn't sure how to answer. The cell was smeared with blood and soiled with gunpowder so thoroughly that no one would know it had originally been white. Someone's incisor tooth was half buried in the far edge of the platform and off to the far corner was a star-shaped silhouette of soot that might have been a small grenade. The ghoul didn't remember a grenade, but he really didn't remember much of anything except for adrenaline and aggression after the first few bodies crashed into his kagune.

"Enough to need cleaning," Kaneki said at last.

"Oh. What happened after I left? Can you remember who came in or what they were wearing? Anything that might be useful?"

The initial attackers were male, he was pretty sure about that, dressed in the same black suits everyone wore. He didn't remember seeing Akira, but if she came in there might be a trace of her perfume left over. She usually wore something that smelled like gardenias. Kaneki took a deep breath, filling his lungs until he could get through the stench of rotting blood and pungent fear, searching for another scent. There was a lot of death-smell to sort through. Blood was smeared over every wall, soaking the floor, sticky in his hair. He'd fought, people had died, and he wasn't even entirely sure how many, but below the smells of violence and pain, another odor gradually came to his questing nose. Not the smell of flowers as he'd hoped, but something better: The last lingering scent of warm cinnamon and rich sesame.

Kaneki took another breath, knowing Hide was waiting, but needing to smell it again, the perfume of Hide's lips. He inhaled, searching and indeed, beneath the gore, the scent was as inexplicably intact as the rest of him. Hide's smell stirred him, maybe even more than the first time he truly noticed it, a familiar odor that was so close and so omnipresent in his life that he must have somehow become inured to it. Now, even the weak echoes of the smell filled his blood with fire and his _blood_ , in turn, filled the sensitive flesh between his legs as wantonly as any erotic haiku.

"Are there bullet cases or empty darts? They might be useful, look around and see if there is anything left that you can hide for later. I can probably hold onto it for you, I've gotten pretty good at slight-of-hand so…"

The sound of Hide's voice was still in his ear, planning an _escape_ of course, and that, paired with the smell, was even better. Hide, his friend, the one who loved him, and the one who had fearlessly received one of his kisses and said he _liked_ it. Hide who said that he might want more.

Kaneki's face heated as the images came unbidden to his mind. He imagined Hide, down on his hands and knees the way some of the characters in the classic Greek love stories by Plutarch and the others he'd studied were described. He imagined him crowned with leaves, panting into the bedding, the gorgeous young god pursued by all. His mouth tasted like heaven, would his sweat be the same? His tears? His _semen_? The strong curve of his back would be a feast for his eyes as he guided the other man's head lower, raising his hips, correcting the angle so that the cherry blush of his opening would be visible. Hide was a virgin there. He'd said as much already. Kaneki would have to go slow, achingly slow, first just a finger, just a touch and then deeper. God, he'd read enough to know how it worked, but now, now actually thinking about _doing_ it was something else entirely. He almost moaned, Hide's energetic voice still chirping away in his overheated ear.

Ah! Now that he was thinking about him, someone he knew, in the context of those stories, the pieces actually made a lot more sense. The careful balance of force and gentility, the absolutely endless references to frail things like lily stems and goblets of wine, all presented so carefully alongside bulls and _swords_ , now seemed far more important than mere scenery.

"Kaneki, I think I asked you a question."

"There was an altercation." He whispered, trying not to let the tremor in his belly make it out into his voice.

"I gathered as much. I asked if there was anything left behind!" Hide grumbled.

"I think, there's still a tooth?"

"A tooth?"

"I think so."

"Like a human tooth from the fighting? Like somebody's…" Hide coughed, "Never mind. It isn't important. Look around tonight and see if there's anything else. If they rush in again and fight you, try to use the opportunity to eat more. Got it?"

"I'll try." Kaneki swallowed.

At the moment, he was not particularly hungry. Rize was hungry, but he was, well, perhaps pensive was a better word. Kaneki was, if not obsessed already, certainly _interested_ in quarry of another kind. There were so many details he'd never thought of before. Would Hide weep the way the Grecian boys did when raped or sigh with rapture like Ibycus in the arms of Cupid? Both images were erotic. He'd once written a paper about why, the origins of the language used, the form and structure of the dichotomy etc., somehow totally missing the point. He thought he might understand now how the old Greeks could write of such things so casually; because the truth was in the metaphors, the simile, a million or more of which leapt to his mind as Hide spoke. His voice was like sunshine, bright, hot, endless, scalding and innocently unaware of its heat, yet made to burn. Kaneki's bloodied hand crept lower.

"I know you still find it, um, distasteful I guess, but try to eat anytime you can. You can eat those CCG jerks, Kaneki, so just do it. They have absolutely no problem cutting off little bits of _you_ …" Hide's voice continued, filled with a kind of prissy authority.

He loved that voice, the 'do as your told' voice Hide used when scolding him for being too shy. He could almost see his face, the little crease between his surprisingly delicate eyebrows, framing his eyes like brushstrokes. How had he never linked the words to the _sensation_? How was it possible to read so much poetry, Hide often sitting a few inches from his arm, and never glance at his friend and just _see_ it? Hide's body was so tan, like gold, so fine, so glistening; a golden bow, filled with tension when pulled taught by the careful hunter's hand, gently bent and ready to fire. He was a supple poplar tree polished by the wind, a tendril of a grape's vine stretched succulently with the weight of swollen, blushing, heavy fruit begging the hungry passerby to taste. Hide was the coveted youth, blessed by Poseidon as he swam naked through the waves, seaweed clinging to his ankles, the warriors gazing from ashore and weeping with desire upon seeing the god's prize. He was the handsome runner, slick with oil, bent to tie his sandals in the island heat of times long lost to any memory save that of an idiotic literature student reading the account and then being audacious enough to _count_ the goddamn _meter_.

"It's true, you really are an idiot." Rize sighed.

"Yes." Kaneki breathed.

"Good," Hide said, "Because this is where it gets tricky. If we do it this way, you'll be sick, at least until you can safely purge it out of your guts and I don't know how long the pain lasts after that. Plus, once you do it, they're totally gonna know something is up…"

Maybe they would use olive oil, warmed in his palm and thin slicked in a glistening sheen over the intimate pucker the same way the Greeks did long ago, but then perhaps not. Kaneki did not think the scent would complement Hide's natural fragrance very well. Any disruption of the aroma, any smell that would clash with musky cinnamon could not be tolerated. Maybe he would use something thicker, like coconut butter, something he could _smear_ , a sweeter substance that would melt with body heat, augmenting the fragrance of Hide's lubricated body as he pressed in to that tight place. Kaneki's eyes fluttered closed as he imagined how such a thing would feel, awkwardly palming the rising bulge between his own legs. He really couldn't remember the last sexual fantasy he'd had and whatever the content of it, the images certainly weren't as stirring as the notion of slowly, _carefully_ , opening his best friend's body for penetration.

Yes, coconut might smell good, rich like sesame, but warm too. Kaneki imagined that smell and his hand moved a little faster. Even something complimentary, though, might be too polluting. He wouldn't tolerate any impingement of the aroma, nothing to mask or change it, so then perhaps Hide's own saliva…perhaps even his own _semen_? There was something almost painfully erotic about the idea and the aching erection twitched against his palm. Almost on reflex, Kaneki pressed downward against the rising hardness between his own thighs and gasped at the abrupt flood of sensation the action brought. Maybe something already heady with the smell, milked gently from the engorged head, flushed with arousal and pulsing for completion…Kaneki bit his lip.

"Hey, are you still paying attention?" Hide chirped.

God, what if he could actually do it? What if Hide let him? What if Hide _wanted_ to? His friend had said that he wanted to do 'things', but the term was horribly broad and, especially in English, it could mean almost anything. Ambiguity was used in language when the reader was supposed to make up their own mind, when really, the word could have many interpretations and, arguably, that was the point. Perhaps finding a specific definition didn't change anything. Perhaps no matter what he did, no matter how far they went, Hide would allow it because, well, Hide could _be_ like that sometimes. Kaneki's breath caught in his throat. Oh, god. He hadn't pictured the scenario that way, with Hide doing anything, everything, just because he said he would and now there was too much momentum. The thought was like ice water, cooling the passion roaring in his flesh almost as quickly as the feeling had come.

Kaneki didn't want that. Blind compliance because he was already committed seemed almost like rape. The word caught like a thorn in his mind. Even as succulent as the notion of physically dominating Hide was, the thought of actually forcing him, of hurting him, was nauseating.

He didn't _want_ a sacrifice and when Hide did that with people, especially with girls, well…it wasn't good. In some ways, Kaneki thought that Hide's easy-going nature was to blame. Or maybe it was his friend's way of assuring himself that he really had done everything, tried everything, so that when the relationship failed he would be able to move on without regrets. Kaneki usually knew that whenever Hide became sort of quiet and agreed to everything the girl said that the end was near. With a girl, being that way was fine, maybe even sort of gentlemanly. With him, with _what_ he was now, obeying every desire would be dangerous, very dangerous. The best thing to do would be to stop. They should stop right now. Kaneki had to let him go and he knew it, but it was so _hard_.

"Idiot, you better still be listening. If you decided to get all maudlin again and went and damaged this earbud, I swear I'm going to…"

"I'm here." Kaneki whispered, voice breaking over the line too abruptly.

"Fuck! You scared me! Are you alright?" Hide whispered.

"Yes, I'm fine. Sorry, I drifted for a moment." He replied glancing at where his hand had left a garish red smear of old blood over the front of his pants and shuddered a little.

"Good. Are you listening?" Hide snapped, obviously on edge.

"Mostly."

"Kaneki, this is important. You need to pay attention so we can get out of here. I know you and I know you're tired and that's okay. However, if you're still thinking about letting me go and shouldering this yourself, don't. It's not okay and I won't allow it." Hide huffed.

"I think," Kaneki took a breath, "I think there may be more at play in this than you are prepared to deal with."

"It doesn't matter. Whatever it is, we'll handle it together."

"Fuck, Hide…" Kaneki groaned.

"No. Together, dammit! I'm going to do this, with or without your help. I won't leave you!"

Ah, and there was the real clarity. How could he forget? He could say anything, do anything, be anything and Hide would never burn their bridge. Kaneki knew it would be that way, it always had been before and being in love only made the knowledge more inarguable. The pain was just in accepting the fact that Hide wouldn't let him go, that his friend would cling to him as he always did. The new kind of affection now blossoming between them, like a chrysanthemum in a shallow grave, would only make him fight harder. Hide loved him, even though feeling that way was absolutely insane. Rize thought so too, but Yamori was less sure. Yamori knew what it was to want and yearn for something, to stand in awe of the one who was also your nemesis, to love that which hurt more than sanity should allow. The parallel was uncomfortable, but familiar.

OoOoOoO

Dr. Riko Shinguya tapped a thoughtful finger against the keyboard as he watched the ghoul's heartrate gradually speed up and his muscles tense, all to peak and then taper back down. Even under night-vision surveillance, the images from the security cameras were too poor quality to see exactly what the ghoul had been doing, but Shinguya had his theories. After all, what do all young men do in the dark after embracing a lover? He smirked. How incredibly interesting! Trite, predictable, but interesting all the same.

Of all the endless possibilities he'd carefully and painstakingly considered, having the ghoul kiss Nagachika was not an eventuality he was wholly unprepared for. Sort of like feeding an alligator a rabbit and finding that the beast wanted to fuck it instead. How amygdalic. How totally pathologic. Unnatural and certainly insane. The Eyepatch loved Nagachika and it was the most excellent turn of circumstance Shingua had every enjoyed.

At the most, he hoped that the Eyepatch may have some score to settle with the boy, something they could use to leverage better cooperation. Affection, and what appeared to even be _sexual_ affection, was a thousand times more intriguing and probably more useful as well. With this, there was no question of leverage, but that was too mundane now. Merely holding the college student hostage against the monster was a pedestrian solution for a simple problem, but Eyepatch was _not_ a simple problem and now, _now,_ there would be much more to discover. Instead of no good options, and each _bad_ option being pursued with fanatical zealotry by block-headed idiots, there was now a whole new arena to work in. Instead of gnashing teeth to get a little information, scraping good data from around the edges of Ayo-chan's mess, there were rather _too_ many possibilities to easily, safely, _sanely_ consider. He giggled.

Some minor spectacle of pain for Nagachika would ensure Eyepatch's cooperation and satisfy the suits, but additionally, more importantly, the frontier for discovery was _open_. Examining what exactly made a reportedly normal, boring, human boy into the most powerful ghoul encountered in over a decade was a viable prospect. How does one go about dissecting something that cannot be cut? It was the age-old question, the scientist's dilemma, and practically philosophy if one decided to be indolent about it. Dr. Riko Shinguya could be lazy about many aspects of daily life, but not science, _never_ that. How to isolate the pieces of something one cannot cut? _Well_ , the only answer is to pull it apart from afar, measure each reaction, learn by observation and then hypothesize further. Shinguya nodded to himself and spun his chair to get a better view of where the small sample of Eyepatch's kagune was carefully suspended in a beaker of fluid. He smirked.

As he'd initially suspected, the true nature of the situation was less that Kaneki Ken _couldn't_ be cut, but rather that he _refused_ to be on some deeper level. His kagune and his kakuja were weapons far more powerful than even the most splendid quinque, and yet eerily similar to the stolen organs utilized by the CCG. On a molecular level, the organs were female and fully ghoul, yet the Eyepatch could wield them as his own body, a male hybrid whose own DNA didn't match. He was a mosaic, a chimera, an artificial monster that yet managed some kind of homeostatic harmony despite natural law and common-fucking sense. The Eyepatch was connected to his kagune and to his kakuja and if they could only figure out how, so many questions would be answered, and even more brought to light. Such was science. Science was the beauty of the void.

One had to have the courage to reach into the darkness and be prepared to sacrifice, be prepared for the spinning nothing to really just be nothing. Entropy was the eventual conclusion and nothing was a powerful force. So, so, so many times he reached only to lose a finger, but not today! Today, the sacrifice was not in vain and his gamble paid off. Bounty for the bold after all! Yes, for the first time he had a sample and it was because Eyepatch didn't hesitate or retreat behind the armor plating of his kakuja. No, the ghoul stood his ground, acting to protect his human snack. All of it was so, so, so terribly interesting.

He'd been careless. Riko Shinguya was humble enough to admit it. He was so focused on the Eyepatch as a specimen that he forgot to think of him as a human too. He forgot that before the Eyepatch came into being, the shocking hybrid creature, Kaneki once was human. He had once been young, male student, like any other, shuffling awkwardly into adulthood. He sighed. Forgetting something so important was very, _very_ silly because the wonderful thing about the Eyepatch ghoul was that he was really _both_ : A human and a ghoul. Somehow, he was a little bit of each, neatly harmonized together like a jigsaw puzzle where the pieces had been cut to fit. Once, just once before, he had studied something similar, but that creature was a mistake of nature, a hybrid birth, and Eyepatch had probably been _made_ that way artificially, _intentionally_.

How sick. How perfect! Predator and prey biologically compatible; it was sort of like a joke and yet not funny, titillating perhaps, but not funny. If one bent one's thinking, the notion sort of made an upsetting kind of sense, though. Nature could be brutal and humans and ghouls weren't really _so_ different. Two sides of the same coin perhaps…or maybe more like an object and its shadow.


	3. Chapter 3

Sharp as a Feather and Soft as a Blade

 _Chapter 2: "Am I your Cheshire cat?"_

Kaneki awoke suddenly, one moment drifting in darkness and the next acutely aware even as his brain struggled to orient his surroundings. The soft buzz of the artificial lighting was abrasive in his ears and the brightness behind his eyelids almost painful. Another moment and he knew he was in the white room, the lab deep in the CCG headquarters. He'd slept without dreaming, which generally meant he had been sedated. The CCG must have put him under while they cleaned up his mess. Yes, he sort of remembered thinking that they would. He even remembered telling Hide that they would drug him, that he could predict the timing because of the slaughter taking place earlier that day. Hide, oh god. Hide was alive! The thought brought a slow, completely spontaneous smile to his mouth.

"So you are awake." A voice over the speaker and _not_ the same one he'd heard before.

"I am." He agreed quietly.

"How do you feel?"

His eyebrow twitched at the question. What an incredibly strange thing for them to ask and what purpose could such an inquiry possibly serve? The ghoul slowly opened his eyes, wincing only a little at the piercing glare from the phosphorescent exam lights on the ceiling. He did not feel as fatigued as he expected to and he was not really in pain. If anything, the sensation was more of a low grade discomfort from being thoroughly and invasively cleaned while he was unconscious. Kaneki could feel where they had scraped the blood out from under his nails and how someone had cleaned between every one of his teeth, where the soles of his feet had been exfoliated and the skin of his anus scrubbed almost raw. Not that being detailed like an expensive car was unusual, they'd done the same thing numerous times before, but he could tell that his body had been touched and, without his knowledge or consent, the sensation was unpleasant.

"I'm very clean, but I would prefer to wash myself." Kaneki replied at last, turning almost languidly to look at the wall that was not really a wall.

"Hahaha! I'm sure!" The voice over the intercom laughed jovially.

"Your people fought and died unnecessarily. I have no intention to harm Hideyoshi Nagachika." Kaneki said, "I'm sorry lives were lost."

"But not sorry enough to avoid doing it in the first place, I note." The voice almost chortled.

"I reacted instinctually. Their intention was not clear to me. I was distracted." He argued coolly.

"So I saw. The question now, of course, it whether or not you intend to cooperate?"

Cooperation implied active participation in whatever it was the CCG was attempting to do and, by definition, one could not actively contribute to something if he or she had no idea what was going on. He wondered if the subtlety of the misnomer was merely overlooked by this newest voice-behind-the-glass or if the word was used intentionally to measure his reaction. In Japanese, the term he used was "ringiseido" and could mean anything from submitting a proposal to joint decision making between equivalent parties. If he wanted to imply forced cooperation, the voice could have used hourensou, which is more often used to mean "frequent reporting to one's superior", but he didn't. Perhaps ringiseido was simply a more habitual part of his lexicon, but Kaneki didn't think so. Perhaps the man just wanted to ascertain if he was paying attention.

" _Enjo_. Is _enjo_ what you really want?" Kaneki replied softly.

The term 'enjo' still meant cooperation, but now with a more religious overtone, as in giving alms, a resultant force. If he cooperated, it would be because he had to and not for any mutual benefit. In the current situation there was only keeper and kept, no opportunity for an armistice. Kaneki used the word to imply something almost mathematical, an equal and opposite reaction, with the subtle barb of a greater being speaking to one lesser, an alms-giver to a supplicant.

"Ahahaha! You are a sharp one!" The voice cackled, "We appreciate your benevolence, oh great and wise ghoul! Ha! How unusual for an eater of human flesh to be so well-educated. One might even think you're well _read_ , a scholar perhaps…"

"Perhaps I merely repeat what I read, like a trained parrot." Kaneki whispered, closing his eyes and trying to shutter his expression.

"Trained parrots don't choose their responses with such intelligent humor and most ghouls don't read at all, repetition or otherwise. We know you have some academic background, there's no need to be modest."

Shit. He'd given them something and too easily too. If Hide was right, and he usually was, they were looking for information about how he was made, the process behind changing a shy college student into a half-monster freak. Confirming that he really _had_ just been a college student in the first place would no doubt be part of a deeper investigation into what had been done to his body, how Rize's organs came to be inside him. He was tempted to keep talking and that was dangerous. Even a nice, long, achingly arousing chat with Hide seemed insufficient after so many days of silence, but he would have to be careful. Acting recalcitrant or proud would only put Hide in harm's way, but _actual_ helpfulness would bring the CCG closer to Hide's fear. Kaneki would not allow an army of brainwashed, one-eyed ghouls. Nothing as awful, perverse and miserable as himself should _ever_ be made again. He licked his lips, hoping the gesture implied hunger instead of anxiety. He had to allow a friendly rapport, but keep the words empty.

"I'm not modest, just tired." Kaneki said at last, and meant it.

"Indeed, well that is understandable as well. Also a good way to answer a question without answering a question. Touche. In another life, you and I might have liked each other, boy! The irony! Ahahaha!" The voice chortled.

"I'm hungry. Does cooperation mean more food?" He asked, trying to sound interested.

"Don't tell me your ever-delicate appetite was stimulated by your little encounter last night?" The voice replied.

"Fighting makes me hungry. I burn more energy when my adrenaline is up." Kaneki shrugged,

"Ah. Well, food is hardly a problem. We may even have a surplus, especially if you decide to be less than accommodating…" The voice purred.

Without any other preamble, an opening in the wall to his left slid open. The interaction was so direct, so sudden, that for almost a heartbeat Kaneki lay stunned, watching like a startled reptile as a CCG soldier wearing full riot gear and holding an irritable looking Hide sidled into the room. The next moment, his blood was pounding in his ears, vision narrowing, growing brighter. Kaneki bolted upright, eyes locked on where the guard was holding his friend, pinning Hide's right arm up behind his back in a joint lock that appeared both firm and likely painful. Hide's face was placid, but pale, pale with pain. They were hurting him. A low, menacing snarl boiled up from his chest to vibrate out into the air like the quaking thrum of a powerline waiting to explode. The soldier broke into a sweat under his riot mask. Kaneki could see and _smell_ the man's fear, sallow and tangy, mixing unpleasantly with the warm cinnamon and sesame musk of his friend's body. His eyes narrowed.

"Now, now," The voice sang, "Nothing hasty. This is merely a reminder that while you have your claws and spines and your lovely little shell, the young man you so cherish does _not_. He is much more fragile."

"Hide?" Kaneki hissed.

"I'm alright, stay cool. Stay cool now. I'm fine, so don't worry…"Hide began, smiling casually,

"Let him go." Kaneki snarled, belly tightening, winding like a steel coil.

"Show him." The voice ordered.

There was a moment of stillness and then the sharp crack of bone as Hide screamed shrilly. Kaneki was off the bed, hands and feet hitting the floor simultaneously, darting closer like a wolf spider ready to strike a hapless fly wriggling in its web. The force of the feeling surging through his blood was like lightning, but darker, the killing instinct raging out of control. He couldn't see the injury, but his own hands had been mutilated enough times to know the sound by now, to know that the man holding Hide had just snapped one of his fingers. The man, the _thing_ made of acrid smelling fear and synthetic plating, had hardly even moved and now Hide's bone was broken, one piece now two, _broken_. The tentacles shifted under his skin and the blood surged hot and furious through his limbs. Hide, his Hide, was being _harmed_.

Kaneki snarled, feeling his teeth practically thrum with the sound. The fear mingled nauseatingly with the pain of watching Hide go pale, ashen and quiet, shaken by the injury. The kagune unfolded itself from his back, lashing angrily, but freezing in midair as the guard turned slightly to reveal the long knife he had pressed against Hide's vulnerable back.

"Let's remember, friends, that the abdominal aorta lies just to the left of the vertebral column in most people and happens is be generally larger and more _fragile_ than it is up in the chest. One swift jerk and the lovely boy, here, will bleed out in seconds." The voice said, all traces of humor gone.

"You wouldn't…" Kaneki gasped.

"Oh wouldn't I?" The voice replied, almost quizzically.

The ghoul stilled, almost holding his breath. The rage was hard to stem, hard to manage and contain! Kaneki gnashed his teeth, quivering impotently, maintaining only enough self-control to hold his body immobile. A cold sweat broke out over Hide's face and it was all he could do to check the violent motion before it moved to the surface. Instead, the anger, the instinctive and inherently vicious reaction to Hide's pain writhed within, coursing sickeningly through every nerve, thrashing around in his heart like a large and poisonous eel.

"Easy Kaneki, easy now buddy! It's nothing big, nothing as bad as when I broke my toe that summer at the shore. Just a little pain, no biggy…" Hide was saying, licking his lips and trying to smile.

"Quiet." The soldier whispered.

"He's right, of course, a minor injury. Tempting to overreact, I know. Just keep your eye on the _knife_. Yes, yes, focus on that shiny, shiny knife and let that nice, big, human brain of yours take the lead." The intercom chirped encouragingly.

Kaneki shivered with the effort, crouched against the ground, not yet sane enough to speak. He had to keep still. Fuck, fuck, he was _barely_ holding back. One of Hide's fingers, one of his beloved, gentle, perfect fingers, had been cracked like the shell of a walnut. Cracked like his control, like the fragile pane of human logic holding back the ravenous infuriated _beast_ he had become, like ice over a lake filled with blood, cracking as something dark moved too forcefully in the depths below. It was a sound like that; a sound so visceral, like something a person could _feel_ in his _own_ bones. He wanted to crack the soldier's skull the same way, with the same tone, harmoniously and make it _resonate_ like music with his breaking, splintering, mental fortitude.

"Just think Kaneki, keep thinking. Stay rational. It's all for show, you know it is…" Hide whispered, warm brown eyes locked with his own.

The soldier turned minutely, angling the knife to catch the light, clearly demonstrating the motion he would use to slice into Hide's back. His friend smiled, then winced, and Kaneki felt his neck crack from the tension radiating through his spine alone. For an endless moment, no one moved. He could smell Hide's tangy fear, the bite of cinnamon sharper and burning in his nose like smoke, the sesame barely an undertone. He breathed in, focusing, listening to the pulse of Hide's heart, beating fast, but not unevenly. Kaneki took a breath and let it out. His kagune undulated slowly, moving with a darker emotion, as he gradually rose to stand on two legs. Facing them like a man, like a human, a person, nodding to show Hide he understood.

"Good ghoul, very nice! You're doing splendidly. Pay attention now, it can become much worse if you don't behave." The voice continued.

"Don't." Kaneki managed, eyes burning as he watched the tip of the blade dig into Hide's skin.

"Never fear, never fear darling boy! We don't have to be uncivil. Just produce the Kakuja, show a little good faith, and we'll let this one out of his predicament and into your loving tentacles for a while."

"Hey, Mark. Come on now. Dude, this is seriously not smart. Kaneki gets very excited in situations like this. He gets excited, you know, and the last thing we need is…Ow…" Hide began, but was cut off as the soldier jerked him more firmly into the joint lock.

Kaneki's vision flooded red, the serpentine tension coiling in his kagune finally snapping. The left appendage struck the floor like a steel cable cut free of an immense weight, crushing the tiles with sudden, concussive force. The predatory organ moved, thrashing helplessly, harmlessly, but definitely without his rational control, showering bits of ceramic everywhere. Debris fell around them, clattering as Kaneki struggled, trying to hold the madness in.

"Don't move." The soldier barked.

"Count down from 1000, by seven, just like you always do…" Yamori suggested softly from the screaming in his mind.

"Hide…" He gasped.

"Eat them." Rize cooed.

"He can't help it! He's trying!" Hide shouted, jerking his torso angrily.

The man holding Hide stiffened, jerking the knife, but not enough to kill. Kaneki snapped his jaws, but held himself back, taking the time to analyze the situation. Attacking would solve nothing and the soldier, Hide called him Mark, obviously had no intention of really, permanently harming his cherished one. Mark hadn't cut him, even when his kagune began destroying the floor. No, the man in the riot gear was afraid too. Kaneki knew it. The only one with nothing to fear was the voice on the other side of that wall. He had to think. Hide was right. He was always right. Kaneki took a breath and willed the kagune into perfect stillness. The silence stretched awhile.

"Does the intercom have a name now?" Kaneki asked, turning to face the wall that was not a wall.

"My, my! That sounds so verbal! Have we come to a decision then?" The voice asked.

"Tell him your name! Your _name!_ We're _cooperating_ dammit!" Hide snarled.

"Very well, since you ask so nicely. I am Dr. Riko Shinguya and I am currently tasked with the project of your biologic exploration, shall we say. How do you do?" The man on the other side of the wall said in a pleasant tone.

"Well enough, though I cannot say I am pleased to make your acquaintance." Kaneki replied quietly, his Kagune slithering restlessly around his legs like a quartet of vipers.

"Naturally, you would say that. Hardly any reason to state otherwise, after all and your honesty is actually quite refreshing! Don't worry, I'm not offended."

"Fuck you!" Hide snapped.

"Now, down to business: The kakuja, ghoul. Do it now." Shinguya ordered softly.

Kaneki glanced at Hide again. The other boy's face was ashen beneath the perspiration, his usually warm brown eyes as hard and cool as chips of agate. The ghoul could sense that Hide was trying to decide how he could change the direction of their questioning. He was weighing the benefit of speaking out with the considerable risk that Dr. Riko Shinguya would simply snap and hurt them both, again, with no ground gained. The breathless silence continued, but the intensity of his friend's expression clearly conveyed his opinion about supplying the CCG with any information about Kaneki's body. He felt his kagune stir restlessly, mostly without his will, moving towards Hide despite his conscious intentions. He had to do something.

"I…I don't really know how," The one-eyed ghoul said at last.

"Don't be silly, we've seen you do it before. Many, many, many, _many_ times even since your capture and also before." Shinguya scoffed, sounding distinctly impatient.

"Yes," Kaneki hedged, "It happens, but I don't _make_ it happen."

Their captors considered his words for a heartbeat. The statement wasn't a lie. Despite his strength, which was only won gradually and with tremendous pain training with the murderous rebels of Aogiri Tree, Kaneki knew he was still a very poor liar. No, he wouldn't lie, but that didn't mean he had to tell the whole truth either. The kakuja, the impenetrable exoskeleton that enshrouded him with every truly aggravated attempt to damage his body was not really under his conscious control. He had a vague idea about how to summon the armor, it _was_ the same demand they had been making for weeks, maybe even months, but only in theory.

If Hide was right and the goal behind his torture and captivity was to create more artificial, hybrid ghouls, how could he possibly comply? More unhappy, fractured beings like himself, only without the freedom to choose who they served, was not an eventuality Kaneki was comfortable with. Yet, if he did nothing, they would surely kill Hide.

"Try." Shinguya ordered, "I will give you exactly three attempts before the pretty snack, here, loses that broken finger."

Kaneki opened his mouth to reply, but thought better of it. Instead, he focused inward to where the delicate engine for changing energy into matter was fastened like a leech to his spine. He had no idea what the organ actually _looked_ like, but he could feel it the same way he felt his kidneys: Distantly and only with tremendous focus. He could sense his kagune now, but only after he'd trained his confused, terrified human mind to recognize the tissue. Once aware of where the kagune was in his body, he had been able to feel the appendages move and shift, both reflexively and with his will. The kakuja would probably feel similar, only more rigid perhaps? More brittle? Kaneki grit his teeth and tried to remember what the sensation had felt like the last time his armor appeared, how the plates joined together.

He focused and something stirred, spiny and uncomfortable, wriggling in between the joints of his vertebrae. With the movement of the alien limb came pain and Kaneki felt perspiration bead on his face with the visceral discomfort of his abdominal organs moving to accommodate something else, something trying to…trying to _emerge_. He groaned, turning carefully towards the wall that was not a wall. He wasn't sure how much he would be able to manifest and Kaneki didn't want to bet Hide's body parts on the notion that he would be able to produce the entire centipede with the armor on his first real attempt. The ghoul slowly began lifting his shirt, trying to reveal the area of his back that was rippling, moving with the expansion of foreign flesh, without losing focus. There was an abrupt release of the pressure building beneath his skin and Kaneki practically sobbed with relief as the warm segments thrust from his body and out into the chilly air.

"Not enough. Only the tips are visible. That is your first attempt." Shinguya said coldly.

"I've never done this before." Kaneki whispered, afraid.

"It's _hurting_ him! Stop it! Assholes!" Hide shouted, stomping uselessly on the soldiers' booted foot.

"Stay still, boy." The man snapped.

"Your beloved monster has survived much worse, I assure you, Nagachika-san." Shinguya chuckled.

"Let me go to him! Let me help, you sadistic pricks!" Hide snarled.

"Kaneki Ken, the One Eyed Ghoul. You are not a beasty to be trifled with and I realize that manipulation of an organ that is not necessarily yours does represent some challenges. The question then becomes: How _much_ investment do you have in that little finger, hmmm?" Shinguya's amused voice resonated from the intercom.

A sharp spear of panic lanced through Kaneki's heart, chased by the still-molten rage he had struggled to contain since Hide was brought into the room. The anger was good, helpful in a way that the fear and desperation hadn't been before. Every time the kakuja manifested before, it was in the setting of impending death, imminent dismemberment or blinding wrath. Of the triggers, the wrath was obviously much easier to control, at least consciously. Kaneki allowed the searing fury to flood through him now, focusing the feeling down low, into his back where a new and terrible strength crouched like a parasite in his body. A sound, more like a snake hissing than anything human issued out of his throat and the articulated plates of the centipede-like weapon slid more fully out of his back.

The kakuja came, inch by slickened inch, forced free from his trembling flesh just beside the stem of his kagune. The movement of the armored segments felt more mechanical than the slick grace of Rize's tentacles and the appendage was heavier overall; a club instead of a lash. With a grunt, he felt the muscular weight of the arachnoid sections tug uncomfortably on the joints in his back and allowed the limb to hit the floor with a dull, almost metallic sound. The eerie scratching of the endless, slender claws scrabbling on the ruined tiles of the floor was almost enough to turn his stomach, but Kaneki refused to shy away in shame. As ugly as the new and awful thing he became was, he needed it to help Hide.

The weapon _wasn't_ the armor and he could guess enough to know that it wasn't exactly what they wanted, but perhaps it was _enough_. The spines on the segmented limb moved and he could feel them, almost like fingers, but larger and much, much, much more numerous. Almost too numerous to understand, but dexterous, and he could sense how they wriggled and how the claws might slice into prey. Deeper, in the dark currents of his psyche, he felt that he could go farther too. He sensed the way his armor might fully form, how it might creep over his body and face to form an impenetrable shell. He could sense the potential of the action much the same way one would feel how to strike a tennis ball with a racket without actually performing the motion.

"Yes, learn it, _feel_ it," Rize whispered with not-quite-sisterly warmth, "But don't show them _all_ your tricks on the first date."

"Ah, hmmm, yes. That would be forward." Kaneki agreed, nodding.

"Fascinating!" Shinguya chirped.

"Always better to be coy. Play hard to get!" The echoes of the female ghoul's mind chimed in his own, almost loud enough that he was sure the others could hear her.

"Can't…be…too eager…" He choked, the dry laugh rasping out into the air.

"Kaneki?" Hide asked, voice small with worry.

Kaneki blinked, realized that his lips were pulled back in something like a snarl, and slowly composed his face. Yes, Hide was there. All of this, the centipede and everything, was for Hide. Like plunging into cold water, the ghoul returned to the moment, to his precious friend's frightened eyes and the long knife held against his back. Kaneki shivered, unnerved at how close Rize had seemed, how close the echoes of his madness could come to the surface, so _close_ even when he was awake and amply occupied. Yamori chuckled, the voice stirring languidly in his overwrought brain and Kaneki's teeth practically chattered.

"Count back, starting with a thousand, do it now. Don't let things slip." Yamori whispered.

"Kaneki, are you okay?" Hide asked again, looking harried.

He nodded and tried to smile, _without_ teeth, or thought he did. He may have simply grimaced. It was so hard to know what motions, what gestures or thoughts or words, were actually real and which were the mere reflections of his internal drama. He couldn't tell if the smile was his smile or Rize's or Yamori's or just the reflexive facial spasm of an anxious beast. Oh, the madness was close! He was too angry, too stressed and on edge. The centipede-thing would have to be sufficient. Hopefully, a creepy new body part would be enough to intrigue them and _not_ enough to help with their plans.

In any case, Kaneki was at his limit. Any more ire or weaponry, and he risked losing control and simply exploding, losing himself to the others, annihilating everyone in sight, Hide included. The thought of accidentally killing Hide, of harming him at _all_ , shook the half-ghoul from the pulsing fugue of his rage and he stumbled, legs suddenly weak. His body ached everywhere and he was panting with the strain of simply holding all five additional limbs upright. The feeling was familiar, something Ayato attributed to a kind of unfamiliarity with the predatory organs, the pain of trying to use a limb one wasn't born with, moving muscle never conditioned before. He groaned, suddenly feeling shackled by the sheer weight of his new and much more ungainly 'arm' as whatever boiling resentment was left over in his mind gradually evaporated into a feeling much closer to frantic anxiety. With an almost feline undulation of his back, the ghoul pulled the crackling segments of his centipede appendage back into his skin, folding the spines in harmlessly to avoid lacerating his own flesh. Once again, his spine felt uncomfortably full with the sharp, rigid plates of it, his ribs aching, and then the kakuja, or perhaps it was simply another kagune, was gone.

OoOoOoO

Hide was proud that he'd managed to avoid screaming when Mark broke his finger, though part of his supposed stoicism was simply because he was fully occupied with staying _conscious_. Broken bones, no matter how small, _hurt_ and the darkness lapping at the edges of his vision for several minutes afterwards was very real. Passing out was not a good idea, not now, not with so many chances for everything to go south in a hurry. Kaneki was not a naturally aggressive person, but he _was_ protective, very, deeply, horribly protective. Protectiveness was an essential part of his being, sort of like water being an essential part of _ice_ , and it was much easier to imagine Kaneki flying off the handle when a friend was threatened rather than just himself. Hide was also willing to bet that his new instincts as a ghoul would only sharpen the risk, make control more elusive, blunting his logic and making a tragedy almost inevitable.

So Hide took deep breathes through his nose and let Mark hold him _up_ as much as the man was holding him back until the pulsing blackness receded from his vision. Even with the tone he was using, Hide could feel Mark tense and tremble any time Kaneki moved, especially when he moved the kagune. The man was a single misplaced twitch away from doing something stupid and Kaneki probably even closer. He needed to be able to talk the ghoul down, to keep some semblance of control. Without his conscious reassurance, the CCG would only make his friend more upset, upset enough to get someone killed and that _someone_ could easily be Kaneki himself. The last thing Hide wanted was to bear witness to his precious friend turning into a corpse, crackling into blackened nothingness as the CCG electrocuted him to death in a vain attempt to save their own, manipulative asses.

Hide shook his head angrily. He should have known they would pull something ugly like this. He should have warned Kaneki somehow, but everyone was acting normally until the last minute and he was just too relieved to be suspicious. After talking the night before, Hide was worried that he might have to wait _days,_ maybe even weeks, before seeing Kaneki again. When they came to bring him back to the white room for another visit, he followed as meekly as he could and didn't risk asking questions.

Truthfully, he was so occupied thinking about Kaneki, about the way it would feel to touch him again and if they would kiss, that he was basically oblivious until Mark grabbed him. In the small alcove that was almost like an antechamber between the multiple sets of doors leading to the clean-room currently employed as Kaneki's cell, there wasn't enough room to escape a joint lock. Even if he _had_ room to squirm, Hide wasn't trained and Mark was, after all, a professional. Until today, Hide would have counted Mark as one of his more preferred CCG guard dogs. The man was friendly, less robotic and cold than Akira or Amon, and he liked to talk about his kids.

How much of a jerk could someone really be with that many pictures of three little girls using him as their model for makeup and glitter? Apparently, Hide thought wryly, quite a damn bit. Despite how totally ridiculous the orders were, how awful and unreasonable and just plain stupid, Mark never wavered. Hide only felt him relax when Kaneki pulled the kakuja back into his body and slumped against the raised platform, apparently exhausted.

"Haven't you had enough?! Isn't it enough!?" Hide shouted, glaring at the upper corner of the wall where the voice through the intercom was loudest.

"I suppose it will be sufficient, for now." Shinguya replied with a sigh, sounding resigned.

"Sir?"

"Let him go. A promise _is_ a promise." The mad scientist sighed again.

"Like that means _anything_ to you people!" Hide shook his head, the tears stinging his eyes from frustration alone.

Mark released him from the joint lock, softly, so that the sudden lack of support didn't just send Hide tumbling to the ground onto his face. On another day, he would have appreciated the small gesture of kindness, but not today, not with Kaneki looking at him with his mismatched eyes filled with equal parts terror and madness. Today, anyone who made Kaneki's pain more unbearable was an enemy and not even one he could _pretend_ to like. Hide moved towards the ghoul only to find his wrist still clutched in the solid shackle of Mark's gloved hand. He glanced up at the man.

"Don't go," Mark whispered.

"They _promised_." Hide hissed.

Mark flinched at the sound, not enough to see, just enough to feel through the glove around his wrist. Hide met the soft grey eyes, earnest and filled with concern over the rim of the man's helmet, and felt his face twist into a sneer. The CCG were all the same, all so fucking self-righteous in the end, saving the world one unfortunately necessary sacrifice at a time. What a damn joke. At least the ghouls he knew accepted that they were predators; eternally on the wrong side of karma and damned to stay there. The agents of the CCG were nothing more than a bunch of nicely dressed wolves walking around and trying to convince each other that they were just extra-protective sheep. For once, Hide couldn't manage a smile for the sake of keeping one more bridge from burning.

"No one said you had to," Mark said softly, hesitating, "I can take you back to your room."

"He needs me. Let me go." Hide snarled.

"I know you think he's your friend, but he's a ghoul…He's dangerous." Mark said softly.

"Not as dangerous as _you_ are, apparently." Hide spat, " _He_ wasn't the one threatening to break my fingers off."

Mark looked away, the subtle gesture of shame somewhat ruined by the riot gear. He clung to Hide's wrist almost obstinately, but not tightly. Hide allowed it, though he wanted nothing more than to slap the man across the face as hard as he could, the tension and sheer callousness of everything making him sharp-tongued and tense. Fighting against him was worthless, though, at least fighting physically, a fact proven more than abundantly already today. He had no natural weapons, no kagune to be both a sword and a shield. The only thing in Hide's arsenal was his intelligence, and perhaps his privileged position as a human captive, with cushier bedding and lighter security. Any battle he won would be done so with a smile and a lie, but right now it just felt too _wrong_.

Hide couldn't help struggling when they forced Kaneki to manifest the kakuja, something he had never done before, on the spot. All of it was just too cruel. He also couldn't help the small grunt of discomfort as his other hand, the injured one, moved up to pry Mark's fingers off of his wrist. On the third digit he was feeling faint with the pain, his broken finger aching horribly, but his hand kept moving anyway, moving those iron fingers one damn inch at a time. Mark was a stubborn bastard, he decided, and permanently on his shit list for this.

"Hide, go with him." Kaneki whispered, his voice low with warning.

"I won't!" Hide fumed, finally shaking free of Mark's grasp.

"He's right, it isn't safe here for you here," Kaneki said, hiding his eyes behind the white curtain of his hair.

The indignant fury bubbled up in his chest again, but he was so _tired_ of having the same damn argument with Kaneki over and over again, not to mention that yelling when his friend already looked so defeated was too painful. The ghoul was leaning against the platform, obviously exhausted and looking less like a hunting cobra and more like a tomato vine that someone forgot to water and was now wilted in the sun. Of the two images, Hide found that he much preferred the snake. Seeing Kaneki angry was scary, his kagune lashing and ripping up the floor was scary, but seeing him like _this_ made Hide's soul hurt from the inside out. They'd both been through enough ugliness for one day. So, instead of shouting, instead of saying anything at all, Hide simply walked to his friend, stepping delicately over the rubble on the floor, moving into the other man's space as easily as breathing. He sat on the platform, one hip pressed against his friend's elbow. The posture felt familiar, just the way they used to arrange themselves in high school when Kaneki came to watch his soccer practices, leaning on the bleachers in a vain effort to hide from the bigger boys while Hide sat on the bench.

The mismatched eyes flicked up to meet him, the dark one already fading from a ruby lantern on a starless night to the soft slate black of his more human appearance. Those eyes, filled to the brim with too many feelings, emotions both familiar and bizarre, felt like looking into a whirlpool these days. Hide felt that Kaneki could pull him in with that gaze, charm him to death like a mermaid taking a hapless sailor. Perhaps they would both drown. It was sort of romantic in a fucked up kind of way and Hide felt a wry smile split his face at the notion. Thank god ghouldom didn't come with telepathy, he thought, or Kaneki would know what he was pondering and go on to call the whole idea something like a gothic cliché done backwards. He'd still probably have the nerve to cite books that used the device well and those that couldn't quite pull it off too, which was too much even at the best of times. No one could nullify passion with academia like Kaneki, Hide thought with a laugh.

"How can you laugh, even now, even with your hand…"Kaneki whispered, shaking his head.

"The world is ridiculous and my brain is a very strange place. Of course I have to laugh!" Hide chuckled.

Kaneki peered at him and Hide had the distinct impression that he was _smelling_ him as well, searching for some other odor. The ghoul nodded a bit to himself and moved a little closer.

"I thought they might have drugged you." He said.

"Moron." Hide chided.

With a huff of air that was not quite a laugh, he surged closer and pulled the ghoul into his arms. Still lightly built, maybe even petite, the other man was like molten iron in his arms, flexible, but shockingly heavier than he ever was as a human. Even with the change, it felt so viscerally wonderful to finally hold him, to feel Kaneki's heartbeat thumping against his own skin. His injured finger sent a warning spear of pain from his hand to his arm, but Hide's vision remained steady enough and the pain was more distant now. He could hear Mark suck in a breath and Kaneki's breathing caught too, pausing for a moment before the familiar girders of the other man's arms circled his shoulders. The feel of him was deceptively substantial, like a charm made of granite, something that looks delicate, but is actually very dense. Hide let out a sigh of relief and buried his nose in Kaneki's hair, feeling the first hot tears drip from the ghoul's eyes to fall against his cheek.

"Kaneki…" Hide breathed, not entirely sure what he wanted to say.

"Oh…oh shit, Hide…I was so scared…" Kaneki whispered in a soft rush, almost sounding like himself again.

"It's okay, okay, everything is okay. Shhh, it's okay, nothing much happened you know," He laughed reflexively, the adrenaline still darting through his body in shaking little bursts of anxious energy.

"You saw it, but that isn't even the worst of it. Aren't you frightened?" Kaneki asked in a small voice.

" ' _How fine you look when dressed in rage. Your enemies are fortunate your condition is not permanent. You're lucky, too. Red eyes suit so few.'_ " Hide quoted, smiling.

"Am I your Cheshire cat, Alice?" Kaneki asked, his face gentling as he recognized the words.

"Probably. You can't be Alice, you're too much of a top, and you _do_ have an unnerving habit of disappearing." Hide sighed, a bit theatrically.

Kaneki's breath hitched and he sobbed in earnest, shoulders shaking. Hide swallowed as the ache in his chest expanded, filling his thrumming bones with a deeper kind of pain, something worse than any broken bone. He hadn't really seen Kaneki cry like this since his mother passed away. In another moment, he was crying too, the stress releasing through tears into the rabbit pelt softness of Kaneki's hair.

They stayed that way, locked together in an embrace too desperate and chaste to be anything other than fraternal, sharing comfort through simple touch alone. Mark exited the space with a small hiss of air and the squeak of meticulously maintained combat boots and Hide felt an ounce of tension come out of his neck once the man was gone. Fucking Mark; he was never going to speak to him again. His eyes flicked over to the far wall, leveling his best death-glare at the sadistic bastard he knew was still watching from behind the glass. Hide privately hoped that someday he could watch Kaneki eat Dr. Riko Shinguya, one little bite at a time, but eating trash like that would probably just give him indigestion.

"This is my fault," Kaneki whispered miserably.

"No, asshole," Hide chuckled, "The only reason we're in here is because I got hurt."

"I thought they would kill you if I didn't do it, I'm sorry." The words were barely perceptible.

"You did perfect. It looked hard."

"It is. It hurts," Kaneki sighed, "But not as much as watching them break you."

"They won't break me. They can't. They need me to make you do stuff." Hide replied with a shiver he couldn't quite suppress.

"Hide…"

The ghoul was probably going to ask a question, or maybe just make another vain attempt at pushing him away again, but Hide never gave Kaneki the chance. He tilted his head and lifted the other man's chin, pressing his lips against the trembling dampness of his best friend's mouth once again. Kaneki was the perfect height to kiss, tall enough that he didn't need to stoop, but just short enough to make the angle sweet and easy. Hide groaned at the feeling as the soft, cool skin moved beneath his lips. The tears there tasted salty, but a bit metallic too, as if the water was tinged with just a hint of blood. Maybe Kaneki cut his mouth during the fighting the night before, or maybe his changed eye wept a little blood along with the saline tears. In any case, Hide was not turned off by the taste. If anything, this kiss was even more arousing than the last. He had a chance to think about how Kaneki felt and tasted, the thrilling flutter of the other man's heart against his chest and the muscular slimness of his waist. He was slender and pretty and even without the swell of hips to rest his hands or the press of breasts against his chest, Hide couldn't get enough of him.

The ghoul's response was soft at first, hands clenched in his shirt, leaning into his arms with lips soft and a little awkward, kisses moving over Hide's mouth with thoughtless sensuality, so like every other virgin he had dated. Hide missed the press and force of his friend's more dominant responses, but it was nice just to take a little time and kiss Kaneki the way he would a girl, to feel a modicum of control. The sensation was almost nostalgic. The ghoul pressed a soft, slow kiss against him, tongue tentatively stroking the seam of his lips. He responded in kind brushing, sucking gently, teasing Kaneki's mouth with the tip of his tongue.

A more submissive lover would have opened their lips, but Kaneki met him stroke for stroke instead, capturing Hide's mouth and angling against him with his jaw for another ounce of leverage. The ghoul's hand drifted to cup his jaw, granite fingers rubbing maddening little circles into the joint of his mandible and behind his left ear. Hide moved a hand lower, cupping the firm rise of Kaneki's buttock through the thin cloth of his hospital clothes, wondering how the flesh would feel with nothing in the way. So hard, powerful and yet round, pleasing, but very different from any girl. He moaned at the sensation and kneaded the muscle there, feeling a surge of desire as Kaneki arched his spine to press back into his grasp.

They moved, messily, the saliva slick and warm between their mouths. Kaneki nibbled his lips, his chin and lower, moaning softly as Hide pressed him with his hip, allowing himself to be pushed, maneuvered against the platform. There was a blush rising over the pale planes of Kaneki's cheeks, pink and lovely like a raspberry ripening in the sun. Hide could feel his own face warming as the roiling pleasure intensified and transformed into a sensual ache in the hardening flesh between his legs. He moved closer, flush with Kaneki, threading a thigh between his friend's legs to feel the rigid column of his sex. The ghoul's breath caught, one hand splayed against Hide's chest as he gasped for air. The feel of his masculinity was startling, enough that Hide almost froze, knowing he probably would have with any other man, with any other body even a fraction less familiar. However, it was Kaneki in his arms, the one person he knew better than any other, and simply knowing that Kaneki was _also_ aroused was enough to be fully erect made him dizzy with desire.

Almost as one, the two men undulated against each other, the blessed friction barely tolerable where their bodies met. The ghoul moaned, the sound startled, almost feminine in intensity. Hide rocked against him, the slender hardness of Kaneki's leg quivering against the hot, electric sensitivity of his own intimate body. The first pearls of moisture were leaking from his penis, the small release hardly enough to ease the swollen need in his body, but more than sufficient to wet his tingling skin and make it _burn_. Hide could feel the fluid on the front of his shitty hospital scrub pants, providing heat without lubrication, making the place where he was pressed to Kaneki's leg almost embarrassingly warm.

He wondered idly if Kaneki's precum would also taste faintly bloody, like his tears, or just like musky _sex_. He wanted to know. He wanted to try. God, how could another male feel so fucking _good_? Hide moved his other hand down to meet the first, holding Kaneki's ass, crushing the ghoul tight against his body with real strength. For a moment he hesitated, the ingrained restraint stilling his eager fingers before pleasure could turn to pain, but the body in his arms was no fragile girl or even another human man who would suffer for his roughness. No, it was Kaneki, _his_ Kaneki, a predatory being made of steel wire and molten emotion. He could grip him, hold him, pull or push him as much as he wanted now and all without fear.

The thought was enough to make Hide's pulse pound in his ears, enough to make him fill his hands with supple muscle and _squeeze_ until his fingers ached, enough bite at the pale throat beneath his lips and oh! The feel of him! Like living marble, he was so cool and smooth. Hide moaned, the sound vibrating into the seams between them, relishing the texture of the smooth skin between his teeth as Kaneki hissed with barely restrained pleasure. He didn't even pause to worry. Hide knew he could take it; knew he could take everything and more, no need to worry about fingerprint bruises on that smooth, white, perfect body.

Kaneki's hand was sliding down his chest, the black tipped fingers tripping lightly over every muscle, pausing only once he reached the waistband of Hide's pants. There was a moment of quivering stillness, a hint of hesitation, and then Hide felt the sharp tug as Kaneki captured a bit of his shirt in his teeth and tugged. The gesture was a mirror of his own, but with that special brand of caution and gentleness that could only come from Kaneki; a sweetness that only he could ever really possess.

"I want to touch you." The ghoul whispered, his left hand drifting lower as well, pressing the small of Hide's back in gentle suggestion.

"Then do." Hide gasped.


End file.
